


The Trouble with Date Night (Or, The Case of the Tattooed Corpse)

by otherwiseestella



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BDSM, British Museum, Drunk John, John is longsuffering, Kink, M/M, Sherlock Cares, Sherlock gets there in the end, Tattoos, blink and you'll miss it mystrade, casefic (ish), john has tattoos, what does mycroft have that club membership for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 15:50:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherwiseestella/pseuds/otherwiseestella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John goes on dates, Sherlock thinks he's making an effort, Lestrade is exhausted, a corpse is stuffed into a postbox, Mycroft meddles, and there is an awful lot of delightfully kinky sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble with Date Night (Or, The Case of the Tattooed Corpse)

_Dinner at 11. Prompt. -SH_

John groaned. He knew that Sherlock knew he had a 'date'. What he wasn't sure about was when it had become the norm for his flat mate to constantly undermine his chances of getting laid.

 

Although as far as Sherlock knew - on the grounds that it interested him so little - these were proper dates, with girls and wine and dinner, not bald attempts to get laid once a week.

 

_Only if you're cooking. -JW_

 

He grinned to himself as he got his coat from the back of the office door. That would put paid to dinner.

 

_I am. -SH_

 

* * *

Sherlock can smell it as soon as the door slammed. His nose wrinkles.

 

'Disgusting', he calls loudly as soon as John was within earshot - footsteps still on the stairs and he hears a loud sigh. 'Go and shower. Don't come in here, no, don't...'

 

John pokes his head around the door. The new aftershave he'd bought was, admittedly, a little strong, but he'd put it on hours ago, and if he smelt of the pub, well, Sherlock had been known to frequent the Ox and Steed when occasion demanded. His voice was tight though, more than a bit off.

 

He doesn't expect to see Sherlock's face white as ash, hands gripping the sides of his chair with unusual intensity.

 

'Get. In. The. Shower. John. Before I do something I regret.'

 

He seems to be twitching.

'You ok?'

 

The reply, Sherlock's eyes clamping shut and a low, pained moan indicate to John that even if he is oblivious to it, he obviously smells appalling. He glances back at Sherlock. Typical, though, that he can remain steady in the face of a seven-foot assassin, but a funny smell has him almost fitting in the living room.

 

As he stands under the shower it suddenly occurs to him that Sherlock might be able to smell sex. He doesn't think 'married to your work' and asexual are the same thing - after all, plenty of people were married to one person and fucked another occasionally - but if this was the reaction he was going to get any time he got laid he'd have to start showering before he left people's houses. Which meant getting as far as houses in the first place. He can feel the smoke-wisp of heat that coils in his belly sometimes, when he isn't thinking straight and accidentally let his mind consider Sherlock and sex in the same sentence.

_Fucking dickhead, John Watson, get out of the shower and see if he is ok._

 

When he emerges, the table has been laid, a good third of it cleared of detritus, and a candle  (on closer inspection, a tiny flaming torch, made of - let that not be human fat - and a wick) has been lit.

 

'This is a bit fancy. You didn't really cook did you? I could murder a Chow Mien.'

 

'Of course I cooked. I said I was going to,' Sherlock replies, as if he were not the same person who, unusually hungry in bed the previous morning and wanting a fry-up, had dropped a match out of the window to set Speedy's awning on fire, called them, warned them of the danger, and then made them bring him a bacon sandwich by way of a thank you.

 

'And anyway, despite the fact that you were forty minutes late and then nearly killed me with your stench, I thought tonight worth celebrating a little.'

 

'What's tonight?' John's face crinkles - worried, Sherlock notices, worried he has forgotten something important and that he will look uncaring. Guilty too, about upsetting him with the unknown smell, although unwilling to commit because he isn't yet sure if it is his fault - but something else - there is other guilt, too. Interesting.

 

John wonders if he will ever sit on equal conversational terms with his flat mate. It was improving - there were even moments when he flummoxed the detective, but talking often felt like watching a silent film with a blindfold on and being asked to give a running commentary on the finer points of the plot.

 

'Six months since you moved in. Since we moved in together, sorry, even if I did technically move in eleven hours before you. It has been,' Sherlock draws a deep breath, 'Useful, and ... pleasant. For me to have you here.'

 

John flushes pink right up to his ears. He clears his throat and manages,

 

 'Thanks, that's really... thanks. Same.'

 

Sherlock’s gaze has dropped to the table and the particular pressure line apparent around his mouth means that he is nervous. He looks at John almost shyly, and then breathes in.

 

'After dinner, shower again for God's sake. Carefully. With more soap.'

 

'What do I smell like?'

 

Might as well have asked _'how's the weather?’_ Sometimes, John Watson is unflappable and Sherlock somehow feels the flapped one, knowing that.

 

'Other than that appalling aftershave, which you will find I have saved you from through immolation,' (Mycroft, he knew Mycroft and his team of oddly similar looking women would find something perfect), ' - you took the tube.'

 

'Yeah, not far, the date was at Green Park, I just hopped on the -'

John is choosing to ignore the fact that his Christmas gift from Harry has been summarily burnt.

 

'We have a taxi account, John. Two, in fact.  Scotland Yard and the British Government pay for our taxis, making us arguably the two luckiest people in Baker Street, except Mrs. Hudson, because they pay for her taxis too, only she isn't so lucky because she misses out on the crimes... Anyway, why wouldn't you take - oh, of course!'

 

John doesn't interrupt, has that far away look he sometimes gets when Sherlock deduces, even when it is about him.

 

'You don't like to use them when you aren't on a case.'

 

John had been a soldier- a career of rations, taking what you are given and being grateful, not taking the piss with privileges. He took taxis with Sherlock, and more often than not when they went out, it was on case business, or at least something pertaining to it. And John walks to work, even on the days when mild rain makes his shoulder ache and Sherlock thinks, with biting certainty, that he shouldn’t do that, finds he doesn't want to let anything cause John anymore pain than absolutely necessary. He frowns

 

'From now on, there is a third account. One with me. You take a cab everywhere to which you cannot walk. And before you raise pecuniary objections, might I remind you I have an extensive trust-fund, which cannot be used for rent because my mother, a latter-day Arachne, is consumed beyond obsession with the idea of us all living in her net, which I refuse to do.'

 

'But why? I don't -'

 

'You do see, John, as ever, you simply do not observe. Have you ever watched me in a crowd? Seen the way I react to those ludicrous press junkets or even busy crime scenes? And where do I sit in restaurants?'

 

John thinks for a second and then lifts his head to meet Sherlock's eyes, which are sparkling slightly.

 

'Always at the edge - for preference, near the door in all of those - strategic, surely?'

 

Such a soldier. John also sits at the edges of things, and is the most alert man Sherlock has ever seen. Shoulders constantly squared against the next threat.

 

'Yes. Quite. But currently, I can smell two women who have been out for coffee, one to discuss the other's infidelity, and they are taking cakes home, probably for their children given the smell of plastic toys - no, wait, one of them must have bought some sort of sexual contraption that smells like a child's toy -'   

 

He looks at John and they share a quick smile, -

 

'A middle-aged man's coke habit' -  

 

He reaches across the table to grab John's right hand, sniffing delicately across fingertips, his nostrils skimming the skin, 'you picked that up from the handrail, so can't have sat the whole way, perhaps you stood for two stops? You couldn't have picked up the restorative painter's lead paint otherwise, or sat in the -'

He concentrates, sniffing, 'Oh for fuck's sake, John, you sat in bull's blood! Old blood, two years old, but still.'

 

'Not deliberately, funnily enough, but I can see the problem. Thank you.'

 

Compassionate John. Doctor. Understands illness and foibles and is kind with them, about them, to Sherlock. Won't laugh and judge, unlike Mycroft, stupid, fat, exceptionally rational Mycroft.

 

'I can do it if I have to. Get the first or last tube, its not that bad. But the data - it all gets trapped there and forced into my head and it feels as if I am under attack. So unless you wish to torture me with residual data, I suggest you cleanse yourself thoroughly, lest I am forced to have you fumigated.'

 

John takes a few remedial steps backwards. His eyes soften further, and Sherlock feels warm inside. He can count on John's eyes to see him well, to see his best, wherever it was located.

 

'Its the same with food.'

 

Not a question. John's mouth quirks into medical mode, Sherlock thinks, admiring the way that his hand always stops shaking and his breathing evens out when he is thinking about medicine.

 

He didn't, as a rule, lie to John. Couldn't, unless it was a matter of life and death - couldn't stand the crestfallen demeanor he assumed, or the way his eyes narrowed fractionally for days on end if he suspected any form of untruth. He nods.

 

'If you'd said something, I could have cooked more, made something more palatable. You have curry every second day.'

 

'Doesn't work like that. Not bland versus hot, its more do to with who has cooked, the tensions in the room, the presence of other diners, and eating slows my brain. Anyway, the Mahal is sufficiently bland, even if that were the issue.'

 

Sins of omission - he does not mention that it is fractionally easier to eat when John is around.

 

'Ok, well, I'll scrub with undue force and then can we eat? I'm famished, and that smells surprisingly edible.'

 

There is a pause and when he tries to catch Sherlock's eye, he has hopped over to the stove.

 

'And I'm sorry about the tube.' He pads up the hall.

 

But why had he taken the tube? Why specifically today, when his army pension came through on the third? By the fifth, John usually still felt comfortably flush. It was the time of the month he bought dinner, so why wouldn't he hop in a taxi? And from Green Park, it was less than twenty quid - a twenty he knew John had in his wallet (he only looked sometimes, it was always the same: photo of Harry, condoms, change, sometimes interesting receipts that gave Sherlock an insight into where John went when he wasn't there). But he hadn't bought dinner - focus, Sherlock, this is meant to be easy - so was the note still there? He'd taken wine from the house to Sarah's (Christmas gift from Donovan, cheap but not poisonous), so -

 

Well, it wasn't rifling through if you found what you were looking for immediately and then stopped, was it? He was trying to develop qualms about this kind of thing.

 

_£20 on Pink Lady Days_ at the 14:15 tomorrow at Uttoxeter.

 

Sherlock's mouth twitches - well, it is a tiny bit funny, trust John to bet on a _pun_ , but he feels something a little bit akin to panic rising in his stomach, clenches and unclenches his fists, digging his nails into his palms so that the red crescents will make him feel something other than this cold, unsettling, what is it - disappointment? It feels as if there are lizards in his stomach.

 

_'Think think think.'_

 

John had told him this, the night of the drugs bust, under the illusion that Sherlock was ashamed, that he needed a show of solidarity. But clean - he'd said he was clean. He’d just been on a date, he shouldn't have been bored? Wasn't that the point of these awful dates? Then what?

 

He puts the receipt away, expertly schooling his features as John appears, smelling strongly of singular, calming, disinfectant.

 

'Actual disinfectant?'

 

'Medical grade, not household. I looked but we don't own any.' John chuckles.

 

 

Sherlock carefully plates up the main. There is only a main: he had flirted with the idea of entrees, but he needed something he could forget about for hours, that wouldn't spoil if John stayed over at Sarah's. So beef and ale pie it is. A pale version, where the pastry is cooked separately, and then balanced on top of the meat. New potatoes (second batch - apparently they require more attention than he vegetables should), dwarf beans, nice wine.

 

'This looks amazing. Honestly, Sally Donovan will have you helping with the potlucks at the Yard if this ever gets out.'

 

He doesn't smile.

 

It is nonsense, the idea that soldiers have narrowed emotional range. The idea that, in such close quarters, you would not understand the clench of every jaw, the speeds of each blink, the steadiness of each exhale. Why would you shut down, rather than honing, your understanding of others? John thinks that in light of this, he might be getting better at seeing beneath Sherlock's masks the moment they appear.

 

The masks are balanced by moments of extraordinary openness. Sherlock's fingers fidget on the table as if tying to pick up vibrations from John, to sense something vital in him, and John sometimes wonders how long he spends each day looking at Sherlock's hands and then promptly bites his own tongue so hard it pricks blood. He wonders if he got away with it.

 

'Just the bookies, John, or online, too?'

 

Fuck. He bites his tongue again, glad he's halfway through eating and so the nausea that floods him won't just throw up bile.

 

'How did you know?'

 

'The extent. The sum of money. How much?' Sherlock can barely bite the words out, and John wonders when, if ever, he has heard him so angry. Usually he is capably of retaining a dangerous, velvety sheen to his voice.

 

'Forty. Twenty last Tuesday, twenty last night, bookies by Green Park tube. Nothing else.'

 

Gritted teeth.

 

John's closed face, the army face that walks into mortal danger, which kills people, which shares nothing. Sherlock has a right to this, though. If Sherlock has to live with a fucking addict, when he himself has sworn off flying and long nights stumbling down blind alleys, the colours screaming, then he is damn well entitled to understand the magnitude of the crime.

 

'Hand me your wallet.'

 

'Nope. This is, I'm pretty certain, is my issue, my business.'

 

'I will tell Lestrade.'

 

John looks away smiling to himself, a horrid empty little smile.

 

'Tell him what?'

His eyes are glittering, addict’s glimmer, desperate for a fight to remove the focus.

 

'That I like the occasional flutter? Its a bookies, Sherlock, not dog-fighting.'

 

The detective stares at him, eyes seeking out eyes and holding the gaze. Neither will look away.

 

Sherlock speaks slowly, as if to a recalcitrant toddler, grotesquely over-enunciating every word:

 

'I will not live with an addict, John. That is enabling. If you bet, I smoke. If I smoke, I take coke. If I take coke and there is a single day where I am too bored for seven per cent intravenous solution, then there is an unrepeatably high probability that I will progress onto sub-coetaneous heroin. And I will. Not. Do. It. Again. Do you understand me?'

 

Neither has dropped his gaze. John does not nod.

 

'But with regards as to what I tell Lestrade? Easy. He doesn't have to overlook the gun, does he? Guns plural, if my suspicion that you swiped one from the drawer of the murder victim on the last case is correct. Danger to yourself, you are. Posttraumatic stress? Illegal weapons?'

 

John slams his wallet down on the table.

 

'Here. And I'm not an idiot, that's the last of that.' And then his spine seems to sag back into the chair, as if the only thing keeping him combative was the betting slip in his pocket.

 

'Heroin? You really?'

 

'Track marks. Never noticed them?'

 

John's voice is low.

 

'Of course I have but I never - bloody hell. Are you clean?'

 

'They won't work with me if I'm not.'

 

As if that explains it all.

 

'You going to ask me why I did it?'

 

Sherlock cocks an eyebrow: 'You going to ask me how I know?'

 

John smiles gratefully. With Sherlock, though he claims never to pay any attention to social niceties, there are occasional moments of grace, and John is thankful for those. He does the dishes and Sherlock, unbidden, pops on the telly. They stay up till three, bickering gently over characters in a Western.

 

                                                ***

 

***

 

The following Tuesday, John is once again wearing something very ironed. Sherlock usually extracts John's washing and sends it out with his own. The sound of the washing machine drives him to fury, and anyway, Mycroft pays. But, Sherlock notes, it is always a blue shirt on a date night, ironed again by John, and in a shade that brings out his eyes.

 

Brown shoes, jeans pressed like dress trousers and he has never let John see him smirk because well, Sherlock knows he could be called - fastidious? - (Excellent) - impeccable? - When it comes to clothes.

 

He's seen John's army pension book, and he knows that every single suit he owns would cost him a month's wages. He is considering, somewhere inside himself that he rarely pays attention to, having him a suit made for Christmas. John is happy when he looks smart. He coughs.

 

And anyway, even on limited income, John's a bit of a snob, if you count the pure wool jumpers and they aren't - well. They are rather lovely, actually, and he's glad John wears comfortable civvies, although every now and again he wonders if John still has anything regulation tucked away. He tries to settle the discomfort he feels whenever he thinks those thoughts about very heterosexual, inaccessible, John.

 

'Get the tube home, and you'll sleep in 221c.'

 

Sherlock wonders if that was the sentence that made John stay out. He waits until noon before allowing himself to feel a prickling classifiable under the genus _panic_. All remarks have gone to the skull today, and he finds he doesn’t like it.

 

 

John lets himself into Baker Street at midnight, unsteady keys in the door, but surely he can't still be -

 

Sherlock can smell him before he gets close to the living room. He smells of beer, whiskey, cigarettes, sweat, semen, and -

 

 

'John?'

 

His face is bruised and trickle of blood is hardening below his nose.

 

Sherlock has seen John drunk, of course he has, down the pub with Lestrade during those appalling socials Scotland Yard put on, and tipsy after dates. But John is a careful drinker - remembers the waiter, can tell you whose drunk what, can get himself home. He's a noble drunk; Sherlock thinks that’s the army in him, and a reaction to Harry, of course - John's vices, gambling, hospital corners, nightmares, (and yes they _are_ a vice, they are curable, on some level he wants them), are not so specifically about loss of control - rather, an attempt to exercise order over chaos.

 

But this isn't date drunk, or noble drunk. _Punch-drunk_ flits through Sherlock's head and his mouth twitches. Bad puns are the usual preserve of the man who is currently - well - he can hear him in the bathroom, vomiting his guts out.

 

'Most of your dates don't end in disfiguration, annoying as you are,' he shouts from the living room. Vomit makes him irritable.

 

'I'd do it again.' John's jaw is having trouble forming words.

 

'Fucking cripple. Cripple? I said I got that for my fucking country, warned them.'

 

'Queen and country. How affecting.'

 

'Do you want a fucking go and all?'

 

Despite John's prone position, head resting on the loo rim, Sherlock does not verbalize the likely odds.

 

'Being perfectly serious. Just to check, do I have to call Lestrade to get you off anything?'

 

'Broke one guy's arm. I said though, 'mate, I might be a short-arse, whatever you say, but I used to fucking kill people for a living''

 

Sherlock flinches at the language. His flat mate rarely swears this profusely.

 

'Knocked the other two out.'

 

Three men. Three, and all John has to show, from a cursory glance at his range of movement, is a black eye? There can't have been more than two punches thrown his way before they went down.

 

'Impressive.'

 

He squints up at the detective, who has a smile hovering around his lips when John was sure he would be angry. Incredibly composed, so well put together, as if pajamas were somehow also a suit, the way they hang off him and...

 

John is sick again, half-forcing himself so he stops fucking _thinking_.

 

'What’s impressive?'

 

'Three men, you were unarmed and drunk, and I assume from the slurs they were taller than you.'

 

John smiles: 'cup of tea?'           

 

'Lets get you cleaned up first', Sherlock replies crisply, and steps over John to reach the medical box down from the cabinet.

 

'So what did your date think then?' Sherlock's mind was racing - fast even for him - but the sight of John injured always filled him with adrenaline.

 

'Oh, er, she'd left by then.'

 

'You do know that you've been gone nearly a day?'

 

Sherlock keeps his voice disinterested, something he has done for so many clients, so many times, that John immediately sees through him, but its easier, this once, to play along.

 

Sherlock's fingers are dancing over John's cheek, applying antiseptic, and his face is creased in a way that indicates genuine concern. If it is genuine, John knows, it is only that he dislikes having John out of action, hates to see his wingman weaken. He sighs, and runs his hands experimentally over his teeth.

 

'Won't happen again, Sherlock, can I go to bed?'

 

'Twenty-four hours, John. I am going to enquire as to why.'

 

'Well when you do wish to _enquire_ , don't hold out much hope of a fucking answer.'

 

He stands up - fucking hell will that hurt in the morning - finds his bed, and manages to toe his shoes off before he passes out.

 

Below him in the living room, Sherlock is very still, fingers steepled under his chin.

 

Gone for that long, betting ... what was he missing? John didn't seem angry with him, nor had Harry been troubling, nor was it any major military anniversary held in his database, so why this?

 

Scent. His scent! Soap, shaving foam, tar shampoo that Sherlock can't decide why he uses: does he use it to combat dandruff (no signs, there would be residual flakes even though he uses it once a day) or for the familiar smell, or is it that the acquisition of a necessarily puritanical product which is more expensive than normal shampoo is a twisted form of indulgence?

 

Tonight, John smelled like other men, their sweat and hair - fine, they'd been fighting and presumably before that, talking and drinking.

 

 Semen. Sherlock doesn't know what John's smells like (he's never done that to the underwear he collects, focus), but he knows John, who would have had sex if there was any possible chance because from what he accidentally overhears from the shower most mornings, John wants sex all the time. He smiles to himself and then briefly releases his hands to rub his eyes, hard.

 

'Of course!' He practically bellows at the ceiling, and then, remembering, mouths a cursory 'sorry'.

 

Its not what John smells of - its what is missing. No aftershave, customary for a date and he's fond of the new one he has, the 'present' from Mycroft that smells of hot pine sap and linen and so enhances John's natural scent. Bastarding clever, Mycroft.

 

John's smell - how could he have been so stupid? No aftershave, but no perfume, either - no caught traces of a woman leaning in. No lipstick marks, not even tiny flakes of mascara on his cheekbones from where her eyelashes should have brushed. Most importantly of all no - _cunt_. Sherlock couldn't pick out even a hint of woman anywhere on John.

 

Didn't mean it hadn't happened last week, of course - the double shower might well have washed everything away.

 

He grins from ear to ear - a very different, wolfish grin from the ones he reserves for everyone else, grabs his phone, and raps out two texts:

 

_Anyone die interestingly? - SH_

_Make yourself useful. -SH_

 

His phone rings immediately.

 

'Bloody psychic. Just about to call you. Don’t let Donovan know you can do that, yeah? She thinks you're scary enough as it is. Although that doesn't mean its ok to text in the middle of the night.'

 

'What is it?'

 

'Middle-aged woman, we think. Hard to tell actually. Been cut up and shoved in a postbox.'

 

'Stamps?'

 

'Jesus, no. Writing, though, weirdly. Writing all over her.'

 

'Barts?'

 

'The bits are due in about forty minutes. Molly's coming in specially, Sherlock, so be nice to her when you arrive.'

 

'Oh, isn't this exciting!'

 

'Yeah, some of us have got social lives, and would rather not spend our Wednesday nights fishing wrists out of a bin, but whatever floats your boat.'

 

 

When he arrives at Barts, he texts John.

_'Dismembered woman. Yippee! Barts ASAP. -SH'_

                                                            ***

John wakes up very, very hard and, if it were possible, in more pain than pleasure. His eyes are gummy- he's been crying in his sleep again, great, and _oh fuck_ his face hurts. His head pounds. He has no idea what lie he'd managed to tell Sherlock. He had been trying to avoid him altogether, he remembered, and that makes his head hurt even more.

 

He slides his hand under his pajama trousers, his breath coming in short pants as he wraps his fingers around his leaking cock. He tries to keep to short, perfunctory stokes, not giving the angular, brunette shapes behind his eyes time to develop into _flat mate flat mate flat mate_ and the way he moans gently at his first cup of tea after a case. Or the way the planes of his body, so unbearably lean and poised, run with water after a shower or...

 

He can feel heat building in his belly, and the flashes of white beginning behind his eyes.  The hand curling round his cock grows longer and harder, he imagines Sherlock's exquisite hands curled loosely over his own, that low voice murmuring supplications until -

 

Christ. He spurts over his own hand, his stomach, and his pajamas, breath coming in shuddering spikes. He is too old to be cumming in his pants over someone who he shouldn't even....

 

As the short glow fades he feels his stomach cramp and flings himself out of bed.

 

_John Watson you had better reach the loo in time. You are not scrubbing sick off the hall floor, you are not twenty years old any more, you are an adult male, too old for drinking and fucking and fighting in alleyways and wanking over your flat mate and ruining your life and oh-_

 

He grabs the toilet as the first wave of nausea hits.

 

Showered and shaved (he is penitential, rough over bruises, opening up an old cut) he glances at his phone. A case. That should keep them both busy, stop them talking and looking and stop those pauses when the air is sucked out of the room which John is less and less sure that he simply imagines.

 

                                                            ***                       

 

'Not sure I should let you near the body if you're that green already.'

 

 D.I Lestrade slaps him on the back, far too jovial for whatever time this is meant to be. He can't have had any sleep.

 

'Heavy night last night. Fine now.' He grinds out.

 

'Already been sick - what, three times? He'll be fine.'

 

Lestrade crooks his head towards Sherlock, who is skipping round the table, lifting various body parts above his head to catch the light, and then shaking them vigorously.

 

'He wasn't there.'

 

Lestrade drops his voice.

 

'You ok mate? If it'd been you two together, I wouldn’t've asked but Jesus, that’s quite a shiner.'

 

John thinks briefly, fondly, of a time and place where none of his mates were detectives, consulting or otherwise, and where a shrug of the shoulders could deflect a question, and leave nobody any the wiser.

 

'Got in a fight. You should've seen the other blokes- except that I don't much fancy being done for assault.'

 

'Blokes plural?'

 

'Three. Fucking chancers.' John scrubs his hand through his hair, wincing slightly as his hand finds bruises.

 

Lestrade gives a long, low whistle. 'Tonight: you and me, Ox and Steed. No Sherlock.'

 

John's eyebrow quirks and his mouth began to open.

 

'And no arguments, either. We need a chat. You'll be drinking water, obviously, Doctor.' He grins at John - Greg of all people understands the form and torture of a bad hangover.

 

 

John fervently hopes the _chat_ will not touch upon topics pertaining to firearms, aggravated assault charges, or a night in a cell. Or Sherlock. Sometimes he feels Lestrade's eyes on him when he's transfixed by the detective, watching him pare the nails of a cadaver the way you'd watch a woman strip, half aroused, half jealous of the care he lavishes on bodies once they're dead.

 

 He knows he's pathetic, and Greg's kind, probably going to get him pissed and point out that he's got as much chance of receiving that kind of attention from Sherlock alive as Lestrade has of getting Donovan and Anderson to stop shagging in the disabled loos. He's looking forward to it already.

 

Sherlock lifts his head briefly from the torso.

 

'You won't be able to see out of that eye for two days John. Perhaps three, I've never timed the healing process of your facial injuries before.'

 

Anderson looks vaguely bilious, as if Sherlock has said _'I've never sucked you off.'_ John fights a snort of derision. Regretting that you've never bruised your housemate's face in aid of science is hardly intimate.

 

'Doctor over here, thank you. Degree and everything.'

 

'I was just going to remark that I hope it isn't too painful. I hope the gentlemen responsible can't see out of either eye.'

 

'You're in a good mood.'

 

'Oh John, this arm is covered in Coptic script! It’s so exciting. It feels like my birthday.'

He leans conspiratorially over the table: 'Or the day that Mycroft fell down a well.'

 

John grins. The whole world brightens under the sudden smiles of Sherlock Holmes, as if he has the atmosphere on a sensitive dimmer switch calibrated to his mood.

 

'The body was tattooed and then dismembered. It can't have been done when the  woman was alive, entirely the wrong markings. The ink is derived from an antique recipe, homemade, a mixture of minerals resulting in this silvery sheen. You see it predominantly on Egyptian sailors, ancient, not modern. You can see where the lettering has torn'  - he laid the left hand by its original arm and John could see the lettering matched, torn seemingly in the middle of words.

 

'The languages vary. Coptic, Latin, Greek hieroglyphs, some runes on the foot I think, but they are blurry - they tattooed from the head down, that much is clear. I'm having Molly attempt to transcribe the feet now.'

 

'Well, it all looks very...'

 

'Yes, what do you see?'

 

John could never decide between pride or fear when Sherlock asked him to take a turn deducing. Certainly, he always suspected that cheap laughs had more to do with it than Sherlock let on. But the way it made him feel, as if he had jumped into a pool and learned suddenly, ecstatically, that he could breathe underwater, was addictive.

 

'Is one section of it something you can read, Latin maybe, that might let you unlock the rest?'

 

Sherlock pauses, twiddling a scalpel. There is a faint flush of pink along his cheekbones and John squares his shoulders ready for whatever jibe is about to follow.

 

'John, John, John!' Sherlock actually leaps up, kicking his knees back.

 

He shoots John a broad smile unlike any of the standard _interaction smiles_ that contort his face and leave his eyes cold. 'That was ... insightful.'

 

His face is warm, tinged with admiration and a sense of satisfaction that John is so unexpectedly clever.

 

Oh there were times when John was so clever Sherlock wanted to kiss him. Times when he stop-started, turned away from whatever looked likely or predictable, and up-ended it, revealing something newer, more exciting.  When instead of tutting about mess in the kitchen, he sat and examined blood samples under the microscope for hours, or soothed Mrs. Hudson whilst she had a little cry about her widowhood, or he brought tea, or read Moby Dick aloud in the evenings, or revealed an extensive knowledge of medieval siege weaponry, or a sweet singing voice. Not that he would ever tell him.

 

'Cancel your plans for tonight.'

 

John groaned. 'I have a date.'

 

'Yes, you do. With me.'

 

'What?'

 

'You appear to harbour certain expectations regarding what constitutes a date. From what I understand of that term it is normative behavior to indulge in a mutually pleasurable activity with someone you admire rather than getting blind drunk and fighting. Therefore, we are going to the British Museum.'

 

Before John could fabricate a reply, or even internally debate the respective attractions of an evening of whiskey, firm arses, and probable shagging against a brick wall or enforced educational activity with Sherlock, Molly popped her head around the door.

 

'Gruesome, isn't it? I've got the runes here. Quite nice transcribing them. Calming. Anyway, just popped in to let you know we’ve got another one, like that. '

 

'What?'

 

'Not a whole body, just a leg. They found it in central post office.'

 

Sherlock laughs suddenly, startling the clinical hush. Molly and John look horrified, but more out of habit than surprise.

 

'A post-script! How amusing. John, this evening is going to be most diverting.'

 

                                                            ***

They stop off at Baker Street first.

 

('You’ve got blood all over your shirt, Sherlock, and I don't mind, think its a vast improvement to that grey, but I've heard museum security don't take kindly to sanguineous researchers.')

 

'As if I would go on a date covered in blood, John.'

 

'Not a date. Also, yes you would, that is exactly the kind of thing you would do, and then you would take a note of her reaction and add it to the table of 'Normative Social Reactions Under Duress' that I know you have taped to the living room wall in the flat downstairs.'

 

'Ignoring the latter part of that. Pure speculation. What would you call this? Two bachelors, out to glean some culture, probably to eat dinner?'

 

Sherlock gives him a short smile, which hovers around the _amused, but tedium is immanent_ mark.

 

'I’d call it crime scene investigation', says John fondly, wondering if Sherlock is joking, or if he is in fact having semantic difficulty with this evening's activity. 'On a date there is usually a mutual desire to get into one another's pants. Mine are off limits and yours, well, your are probably covered in small intestine.'

 

There is a silence. Not uncomfortable - Sherlock is not reliable when it comes to supplying witty ripostes, he loses interest - but it is a very intense silence that seems to ripple into the space between them. The hall did not used to be this cramped.

 

Then Sherlock spins on his heel and slams his bedroom door without further comment. John cannot work out if this is because he prefers everything 'on limits', having no fixed idea of personal possessions, or because they are in a hurry.

 

_Oh shut up_ , he thinks. Last time they had both been trying to get to the fridge whilst Mrs. Hudson was in the kitchen clucking over the dishes, Sherlock had described it as an orgy. He could play very fast and loose with vocabulary: alarming for a man whose military career had relied on accurate deployment of accepted technical terminology to produce results: ' _Today we have naming of parts'_.

 

John changes too, goes for black jeans, now perhaps a little too tight, he needs to start swimming or fucking, he's always thinner when he's regularly having a good tumble, and a black cardigan that he rather favors and suspects Sherlock likes too - he's found it in his laundry basket  - the only place in Sherlock's room unlikely to be a bio-hazard area - on several occasions.

 

If they knock off early, he might be able to slip out. No harm in looking nice. He grimaces at the mirror briefly - sometimes, living with the embodiment of physical perfection damages ones self-esteem.

 

Sherlock, on the other hand, has gone with an ivory shirt and a deep blue -

'Is that a cravat?'

 

A faint blush. Maybe?  It was hard to tell.

 

'A present from Mummy. Mycroft claims to have chosen it, but given that he dresses entirely in shades best suited to the far right, I find that a little hard to believe.'

 

'It looks great. I just - well, we didn't get many cravat wearers in the RAMC.'

 

                                                            ***

'So what, specifically, are we looking for?'

 

'I've had them leave the cryptography archives open, of course. I'll likely be there all night; this is not an amateur coder. The interest lies partially in the content, but mostly in the narrative surrounding it. Motivation, John: the current data is secondary at best. If you require diversion, I suggest we briefly peruse the Enlightenment Galleries. I rather thought they would appeal to your sense of order.'

 

John gazes resolutely into middle distance and wonders if he's blushing. It was more than unusual for Sherlock to expend energy _perusing_ anything that was not directly related to a case. John did not flatter himself for a second that this was not case-related, but for him to couch anything in terms of John, except comments about dullness or the paucity of intelligent thoughts among the populace, was unheard of.

 

'Right. Well, great. Sounds... enlightening, I suppose. But no pint and no kebab on the way home?' He smiles to himself.

 

'Assuming that I assume you are a philistine is hardly sensible. On the contrary. Overtly concerned to prove that lower middle class standing is not equal to ignorance, your father took night classes to gain a technical qualification. Similarly, your identity relied on you being clever beyond your postcode. Doctor for the career, yes, but you've read the classics, go to galleries and to plays, feel guilty when you watch sci-fi thrillers and read Le Carre novels.'

 

'That was a joke.'

 

'Was it?' Sherlock flares his nostrils.

 

'Oh, piss off you git.'

 

Sherlock's lips twitch, he flicks up his collar so that the edges of the Belstaff graze his cheekbones, and sweeps into the museum.

 

'I imagine later we can stretch to that kebab, though. There's a nice little Greek place just off Russell Square, owner owes me a favour. You can bring me supper.'

 

John doesn't think to wonder how Sherlock procured them the British Museum, unlocked and empty, for an entire evening. Inside it is dimly lit, like a gigantic pearly seashell, the dying light filtering through the glass ceiling.

 

The cryptography archives are, suitably enough, in a small room down a maze-like corridor in the basement of the museum.

 

Sherlock throws himself down at a desk, slips on cotton gloves, and sets to work immediately. Still bristling slightly John glances round at the books, Middle class guilt. Says the man with a trust fund.

 

'I’m off upstairs.'

 

Sherlock doesn't answer. John doesn’t move.

 

'S6.100.1G'

 

He's been fetching library books, festooning the table with manuscripts and rolls of painted cloth for over an hour. Sherlock has not looked up. The desk lamp casts a gentle glow over the detective, lengthening his lines and deepening his angles. In acute concentration, hands flicking pages, taking notes, he looks graceful, chest gently rising, shirt, lighter than normal silk, clinging, his exhalation the only proof he's not a waxwork.

 

His lips, too, the rhythmic whetting of them as he moves from book to book, expression self-contained but calm, cloistered in the splendour of deduction.

 

 John feels his heart heavy in his chest, as if it is trying to extend out from his body. Suddenly, he realises he has been staring.

 

Blushing, he leaves the library at a half-run, and although Sherlock doesn’t lift his eyes from the page, he hears a hollow clang, very much the sound a metal filing cabinet might make if someone had punched it. He quirks an eyebrow, files the event for post-case dissection and continues.

 

When John stops running he finds he is staring up at an eerily lit temple, which looks as if it has been lifted in its entirety from Greece. It probably had been. He sits heavily down on a bench,  not out of breath so much as shaken.

 

'Buggering fuck.' He remarks to the one of the headless goddesses.

 

The sound bounces back to him off the gallery walls.

 

'Hardly the intercessions they are used to hearing, I'd imagine, but not entirely lacking in charm.'

 

John's hand is on his gun before he has time to think.

 

'Neither necessary nor pleasant, Dr Watson, but excellent reflexes.'

 

And Mycroft Holmes, weight tipped delicately onto his umbrella, emerges from behind one of the figures.

 

'You couldn't have just sent a text, could you? Like a normal person?'

 

Mycroft's nose twitches, a gesture alarmingly similar to Sherlock's is when forced to speak to someone in a shop.

 

'Anyway, he's downstairs breaking codes in the crypt, if you want him.'

 

'Amusing, but its you whom I dropped in to see.'

 

'I'm not broke enough to reconsider your offer.'

 

They both smile briefly. It has become their little joke - although John still secretly wonders what his life has become now he shares _little jokes_ with a man more powerful than the Queen. He doesn't much like breaking chains of command, and conversations with Mycroft always feel like a liberty taken.

 

'I came to discuss the crisis of sexuality you appear to be having.'

 

John thinks his heart might have dropped into his stomach. Every hair on his body rises, he can feel his chest constricting, and small black dots dance in front of his eyes.

 

'Captain Watson. Attention please.'

 

Mycroft’s voice is a warning, a military echo. He feels his body attend, his creases uncrumple, his breath even automatically.

 

Jesus. What a fucking stupid trick to pull on an ex-soldier with PTSD. But then, this  man is probably no stranger to overseeing torture. In a horrific incident  two weeks previously, Sherlock had tried to embarrass Mycroft over dinner by informing the restaurant at large that his brother had spent a summer overseeing Anglo-American relations in Guantanamo Bay and hadn't been keen to leave. He probably got a kick out of this.

 

Credit to him, however, it had worked., and John was no longer on the verge of hyperventilating.

 

'Not my jurisdiction, John, if you're thinking about torture. Only recreationally, much like you.' He purses his lips in a thin smile

 

'What, Mycroft?'

 

Christ he hopes he doesn't know what he thinks that means he knows. He can't know that, surely.

 

'You're having sex with men, to begin with.'

 

'...how the fuck?'

 

'You don't have to discuss it with me.'

 

'Of course I don't have to - Christ, Mycroft I'm not your brother. You don’t own me.'

 

Mycroft doesn't blink:

 

'He's gay, you know. Not a virgin, despite the way I tease him. One minor relationship - Victor Trevor, sweet enamored boy, needless to say it didn't work. Sherlock was looking for something more - extreme, I think he said. Alarming, in hindsight, as immediately afterword he began 'experimenting' with heroin. Not one for taking it slow.'

 

John did not need to ask why he was being told this.

 

'Stop following me. I don't need your help.'

 

'Of course you do. Everybody does. But don't flatter yourself. I'm no fairy godmother, John. Far more like a, well, a -'

 

'An arch- nemesis?'

 

'I was plumping more for _irresistible force_. Continuing to harm yourself would not be a sensible course of action. Us Holmes’s are unaccustomed to Calvinism, it frightens us.'

 

Mycroft takes a deep breath, excruciatingly bored by John's stubborn incomprehension.

 

 'There is nothing wrong with you, or what you are feeling. It is quite normal, and in fact fairly pedestrian, although your proclivities tend more toward the interesting end of the spectrum than I had previously imagined. He would not be averse, should the occasion arise. Most probably, frightfully compliant. The stomach curdles. I need not add caveats regarding what might befall you should you ever exploit or betray him. You might even be-' he sneers '-good for one another.'

 

With that, Mycroft exits, a proper deus-back-into-machina, apparently through the solid wall at the back of the temple.

 

'Jesus fucking Christ.'

 

John paces up and down the dimly lit hall, touched and alarmed in equal measure.

 

If Mycroft knew, then Sherlock knew, or nearly knew. He'd seen Mycroft deduce five minutes faster (the day that Sherlock threw a Le Creuset casserole dish through his own bedroom window to 'test shard patterns') but any advantage over his brother was marginal.

 

 He had assumed that, having kept his preferences largely to himself for almost twenty years, it would be up to him when, and if,  Sherlock found out.

 

At about fourteen he'd kissed a boy, soft and shy after they'd cycled to the lake half an hour out of town. Boys could, he learned, hold the same secrets under their skin as girls, secrets that drove him half-mad and wholly inarticulate.  He let them, up in the woods behind school once or twice, and once in a youth hostel in Southend on a rugby tour. But John had liked girls, they'd liked him, and if either was fine, then girls it was. He thought about it, yeah, but not often.

 

And squaddies fumble, of course they do. You get bored in the desert, you go mad in the desert, you can die in the desert, and so if you're having a mutual wank at the end of drunken night or you've got some guy's head between your legs, or everybody knows you've got a tour boyfriend, nobody's going to start anything. And medics save lives. RAMC guys, they used to joke, got more action than everyone else put together. All the soldiers so grateful that you patched them up, they'll let you bugger them senseless.

That hadn't quite been John's experience (it actually tended to be helicopter rescue pilots who got most action) but there was some truth in it.

 

He'd been glad to get back to a place where sexual conquests had soft curves and didn't stink of sand and sweat. Not that there'd been many of them. He's avoided thinking about the more recent alterations to his browser history, the women taller, thinner, brunette, and he still cam thinking about old girlfriends handcuffed to the bed.

 

Bisexual. Fine. That didn't solve, in any way, the problem of Sherlock making him bite down into his pillow, making him feel as if he had lava creeping under his skin whenever he called for him, pulling him into combat, into this ridiculous life.

 

                                                            ***

 

'John,' Sherlock's footfall didn't disturb the silence: 'my brother always did like a nice, edifying turn about a museum. Although I once had him ejected from here - slipped one of the Lewis Chessmen into his gloves.'

 

He gives a wolfish smile and throws a companionable arm around John's shoulder.

 

'Got what you came for, then?'

 

'In reverse. Something has been taken. There are books missing down there - which, I can't confirm, but books that should be there. '

 

"Where are they?'

 

'After our turn about the gallery, we are off to the tattoo parlour... Are you tattooed?'

 

John pauses, but Sherlock isn't waiting for a response.

 

'Lestrade might be. Or Mrs. Hudson, at a push. Obfuscated though, surely? Ex-mafia now.'

 

'Wait, what?'

 

'A tattoo, John. God, it must be so relaxing being thick.' He sneers, and then speaks very slowly: 'do you have a tattoo?'

 

John sublimates the urge to punch Sherlock, but only just. It is often a temptation, and half the time when he flexes his left hand it isn't the tremor, it’s a reminder to keep it to himself.

 

 Him and his brother. How dare the two of them come into his life, unbidden but somehow required, and expect him to expose everything? He is not used to persistent and focused intrusion.

 

But looking at Sherlock, the piercing eyes and fiery concentration, he feels the - now familiar - sensation of giving in to his mind, of trusting him.

 

He doesn't trust himself to talk, though, and so he just begins untucking his shirt. Sherlock’s eyes widen and the vast glowing space of the museum shrinks down to this pinpoint, hands carefully, neatly, rucking his shirt up, his calluses brushing the soft cotton.  John, who dries off in the bathroom, door locked, who has never appeared to Sherlock in anything less than long sleeved, long trousere-d pajamas (and then, only when so floored with flu he could barely walk), is voluntarily disrobing.

 

Sherlock can't tell if he feels appalled or thrilled. He knows, deep down in the parts of him he only throws light on before losing himself to cocaine, that he wants John to run, leave, never expose himself to someone who isn't nice, can't love, doesn't know how to care for another human properly. (Oh Christ, he can feel himself twitching for a line now).

 

'Keep your hair on. I've got a t-shirt under this.'

 

John's noticed his discomfort.

 

'Chasing a murderer and getting shirtless in a museum. And your other dates are exciting? I doubt it.'

 

'Yeah, well, you aren't the sort of person you can take to the cinema. Want to guess first?'

 

Sherlock does not say _'I wish you had my name tattooed on you, I wish you'd let me lick the blood and ink off any new ones, I'd rather you were tattooing me right now.'_

 

He focuses on John, where the creases of his body are, where he is holding himself away from the detective's eyes.

 

'RAMC logo, top of your left arm, prior to deployment, because you wouldn't have had it done afterwards, even in the break between you first two tours your attitude toward your role in war had changed. So, just after graduation - but not alone, you're hardly the impulsive type, not beyond defense responses.  Its fairly small.'

 

In response, John drops the shoulder of the shirt down sufficiently that Sherlock can see it, in what feels like a ludicrous strip-tease.

 

'Not so small, then.'

 

'Is it the ink you are interested in?'

 

Sherlock has his face almost touching John's arm. He can feel his breath, steady, a _thinking_ breath, he'd say if pushed. A finger runs over the tattoo, tracing the edges.  John is calm under pressure: not the sort of man to have his breath hitch if he doesn't want it to.

 

'The ink, Sherlock?'

 

'Hm?'

 

He is trying not to snap.

 

'Of course. Never seen tattoos on a living specimen. Others?'

 

Ignoring 'specimen', as he ignores 'idiot', ignores 'dull', letting fondness flare instead ('I'm _his_ specimen).

 

'Shame I'm not tattooed all over, really, make it easier for you.'

 

'Don't pretend you aren't enjoying this - getting to provide the solution.'

 

He walks round John slowly. 'One on your back. Text? Important but you didn't want to be able to see it. Considerate, you don't want lovers to have to stare at it. Easily covered.'

 

'How did you...?'

 

'Wait a sec - its not - is it in Pashto?' Don't tell me.'

 

'Only one I regret.'

 

'You were - 25?'

 

'Yes, you brilliant bastard.' John smiles: 'God knows what gave that away. Got it the night before we flew back from Turkey.'

 

Sherlock raises his eyebrows.

 

'Military protocol. You've been in a high-intensity combat zone', his lips quirk at the phrase: 'you can't just fly home - scare the civvies shitless. Queen pays for a jolly  - ours was ten days, we'd taken such a pounding.'

 

He pauses. When Sherlock knows things, he does not like them to be repeated.

 

'New data, continue.'

 

'Total carnage. I reckon we were busier there than on tour. Not that we didn't have fun, but Jesus. STIs, fights, and more sunstroke than any of us got in Afghan. Sometimes, at war, when we were under heavy fire, we'd joke around. You say to your mates, you know, you say-'

 

Sherlock flinches at the repetition, stifles the flinch so John won't stop. He notices, breathes-

 

 '- if I get hit, fuck a bird with green eyes for me, or a wooden leg - the harder the challenge the better - and someone said to me, lets get matching tattoos if we both get out, and we didn't, he wasn't RAMC, he bled out under my hands. So I got this one for him.'

 

'What is it?' Sherlock's voice is soft and low.

 

'Hippocratic oath - well, a line of it: not the BMI one, modern translation, Pashto so no one could read it. Says 'I will not be ashamed to say "I do not know". Or it should - got a mate in Intel to translate it for me so it could say bloody anything.'

 

Sherlock feels as if he might cry, the grim hay-fever sensation that only John pulls out of him.

 

'Tell me the last one and let's look round. I can examine it later.'

 

He realizes that _'_ specimen' might have been construed as inappropriate, wants to make it up to John by not comparing him to the exhibits.

 

'And before you ask, 'the only one I'd change' implies more than one, but I doubt you have more than three.'

 

'You can't guess?'

 

'Don't want to.'

 

'Its the most, erm, intimate.'

 

'Buttocks? I never had you down as...'

 

'No. Over my scar.'

 

'Recent then. Last year: just before you moved in. It wouldn’t have healed enough to do it earlier.'

 

'After I moved in.'

 

'Don't be ridiculous, I'd have noticed.'

 

'Week after I moved in. Lull between the cabbie and that awful business with the locked room rape. You were sulking over a drugs bust, I booked an appointment and left clinic early. No reason you would know, I'm experienced in hiding visible signs of discomfort.'

 

'Fucking hell.'

 

 He draws out the profanity magnificently. He never swears, and it nudges something hot in the small of John's back ...

 

'Constellations.'

 

'What?'

 

'Constellations. The positions of the stars in the sky at night, Sherlock.'

 

He breathes in deeply, rolls up his sleeve - so much for just telling him. He studiously avoids Sherlock's gaze, not that he's funny about the scar, but his levels of scrutiny are overwhelming.

 

 'When I was shot, right, it was dusk. The guys radioed, but we were out there for an hour, I think. I remember knowing they were talking bollocks. We all did it, _'you'll be fine, mate, just fine'_ , and I just think, bullshit, I'm a doctor, I know how much blood I'm losing. But the stars. Jesus, the stars, Sherlock. I know you don't care but the way they sat in the sky, all those clichés about how big they are? So I looked up the charts when I got back - position of the sky on that night, in that place, not tricky really, amazing what people record.'

 

'And you had them tattooed over the wound?'

 

'Entry wound where I was lying, stars in relative position. People've seen it, but I've never told anyone what is was.'

 

He looks at Sherlock uncertainly, and Sherlock gazes keenly back. Decorated war hero, with a mind as wide as the sky and the bravery to commemorate vulnerability, to record the moment when he made peace with the idea of dying. The feeling that he did not know John at all suddenly crept up on him, the suspicion that on a daily basis he vastly underestimated the compact man who walked beside him.

 

'That will do for now, John. And don't shoot me that look. Ignorance of heliocentrism is not tantamount to an inability to appreciate grace and symmetry.'

 

John is sure there was a compliment for him underneath the self-aggrandisement.

 

'And thank you. That knowledge may come in useful if I - ever have to identify your body or describe you.'

 

Too romantic? Perhaps acceptable in this curious situation.

 

 

                                                            ***

 

John can see why Sherlock loves the Enlightenment Galleries. They are a study of obsession, categorization and clues.

 

'Of course, with two competing classifications system, you can accurately deduce the histories, preferences and methods of the collectors with ease. My brother and I used to compete as children.'

 

John examines a set of 17th century cocoa cups. They are exquisite.

 

'Preferences?'

 

But Sherlock is already peering into the next cabinet: 'look at the advent of Druidmania, John. A touching example of mass hysteria induced by organized criminals. Of course, never could get the curators to accurately update the sign.'

 

'Sorry. You could tell if they were gay or straight from how they boxed their fossils?'

 

'It is almost impossible to conceal sexual preference, even through the centuries,.' Sherlock replies evenly. Excessively evenly, without even a hint of gloating.

 

John's stomach sinks and he busies himself with a set of Wedgewood miniatures, disturbingly fixated on the proclivities of each face.

 

'I wanted to show you this', Sherlock calls down the hall: ‘he rather reminds me of you.'

 

The Hermes Farnese is standing in winged sandals, a message clutched in his hand. Marble, but not brilliant white - a far less ostentatious grey. He is not a young man, thick thighs and a trunk showing just a hint of softness over the planes of muscle. His shoulders are slightly heavy, and he has a patient face.

 

'Flatterer.' From the round tone, he can tell John is pleased.

 

'He is, categorically, not Adonis. Just caught my eye last time I was here. Could borrow him, of course, but I refuse to ask Mycroft and I think he might not suit our flat.'

 

'Or you'd shoot him. You would. I'd piss you off and you'd shoot the fingers off him.'

 

John remains standing in front of the statue, considering it in the fine light. It almost flickers. Nice that Sherlock compared them. Nicer still that there were blokes who could do to work out more even then.

 

'Funny, they've got that replica of the Rosetta stone in here, when the original is only two galleries over. Passed it earlier.'

 

He's already standing beside it:

 

 'A faux stone, plaster, accurate in every detail. Used for education touring. The script is exquisitely delineated. Another crime! John! We need the record room, and tell Lestrade to get someone on the records his end, and I'll find them in the morning when he inevitably can't. If the records show nothing, I'll try the mummies. John! This is clever. Dangerously clever. A game of fakes, every fake a life.'

 

'What do you want me to do?' He knows better than to seek a cogent explanation at this point.

 

'Look for fakes of course. Duplicates. In the interim, break into the canteen. Four black, two sugars, a fifth with three sugars. I've got patches, but I can't afford to use them yet.'

 

John mutters something about knowing how the bastard takes his buggering coffee, and slips off into the dark canteen.

 

As Sherlock had predicted, they were there all night. John was not easily spooked, but something about the deserted galleries froze his blood, and made him tighten his hold on the gun.

 

He'd made a list, as he tiptoed through the upper floors.

 

_False amour, one suit. Three vases, a boat primarily made of reconstructed wood. A spiked chest, the original in Paris, and, well, two mummies._

 

At dawn he is walking briskly down to Sherlock in the Pressroom, behind the shop, when Lestrade rings.

 

'He's not picking up.'

 

'Dodgy signal. He's in the basement going through the press archives. Seems to think its a copycat murder - something to do with fakes?'

 

'We've found something.' He sounds strained, John can imagine him leaning in a badly lit corridor, Styrofoam cup clutched in one hand, bags under his eyes, wishing that he had time to nip to the recovery room for a kip.

 

'Bunch of books in a waterproof box, dredged up out of the Thames. British Museum stamps.'

 

'He thought those were missing. D'you want him with you?'

 

'Want's a strong word. I've not forgotten that pint either, John. Get him to come in as soon as you're done.'

 

'Looking forward to it. Now go and ask Sally for a multivitamin, and get someone junior to buy you a sandwich. Doctor's orders. You sound like a corpse and by my calculations, we're going to be awake for another million hours.'

 

                                                            ***

 

 

A taxi idles, the meter running. Outside, dawn has materialized fully into day, and they have, John feels, very little to go on: just wet books, veiled threats, and the hooded light in Sherlock's eyes.  Had the birds been audible over the roar of commuter traffic, it could scarcely have been more perfect. He huffs out a happy breath as the driver pulls away.

 

The tattoo parlour is, funnily enough, still closed at seven am but John's mentioned opening hours before, mentions them about once a week, so he doesn't bring it up. The owner sleeps upstairs but all Sherlock needs to do is slip a skeleton key into the lock and they enter like ghosts. His hand is hot on the small of John's back, jostling him towards the workroom at the back. There are several ink preparation trays out, and he swiftly pipettes ink from three of them, smiling a little when John locates a plastic baggie of something that looks like earth behind the taps of the sink.

 

On the way out, Sherlock kicks a radiator, hard, and to John's amazement a length of rope slithers out of the bottom. It's damp with a slightly greenish tinge. Sherlock shoves it towards a grimacing John, who's wondering why they can't have whispered conversations about this kind of thing rather than him always carrying whatever the equivalent of a disgusting length of wet rope happens to be that week.

 

 Sherlock's fingers fly over the keys of his phone:

 

_If books have smudges, arrest Brian from Tattoos Inc, Frith St. SH_

_***_

'Don't speak to me.'

 

Three sugars, without even asking. She might not be their housekeeper, but in fact she is more like a favourite aunt. She clutches at John's arm, imploring him to _make sure he eats something, dear._

Three patches, the monastic pacing in front of the window, treading the threadbare patch on the carpet. John wonders how many windows this had happened in front of.

 

'Go to bed.'

 

He's been studying the very small stain on the arm of the chair through closed lids.

 

'I'm fine.' And would be better if certain detectives didn't need nocturnal access to files also available during office hours.

 

'Four hours. Lestrade needs to arrest the tattooist, the books are here,' he gestures at a damp box seeping mud into the carpet, 'and it will be - oh, ten hours or so before he plans to kill again. Sleep.'

 

Implied: there won't be time for sleeping after this. There is something unusual about Sherlock's tone. Not only the kindness, the decency to actually tell John anything, but there is a note in his tone that he hadn't heard since...

 

'Not...?'

 

'No, John. When I said his head was on a spike inside Mycroft's office, I wasn't embroidering the image.'

 

Dental records, DNA - Molly had kept jumpers and tissues: sentiment, elevated from pathetic mementos to vital clues with the flash of his lunatic smile. John hasn't wasted time worrying about Mycroft being the type of person who keeps a head in their workspace - he'd have the head sitting in the hall if it wouldn't give him nightmares. Mycroft might be deeply frightening, but his men, the government's men, undertake dispatches beautifully. Thank god.

 

'Someone who respected him at best. It was a game, remember? This crimes lacks his ghastly attempts at humour.'

 

'He'd have carved a Punch cartoon onto the body.' Head, shoulders knees and toes. Something hilarious.

 

'Quite. I'll wake you when we need to go.'

 

John let his eyes linger on Sherlock's tall, tense back before padding upstairs.

 

                                                            ***

 

_Moriarty's eyes, every rock in the desert revealing those eyes that burned with white fire, eyes that burned through hails of bullets, unblinking, unthreatened, relishing the terror and destruction, coming ever closer, joined by hands that could reach out, seek him out with deadly certainty, mouth like a wound, laughing, opening, issuing forth snakes and spiders, issuing forth the bloodied hands of children, calling to him, 'John, John, come out and play, John'._

 

John is wrenched from sleep by the sound of screaming. For a terrifying minute he is neither at home nor in Afghanistan, suspended halfway and terrified. His hands tear at the sheets, his legs kicking out against the duvet. His own screams, then, sweat pouring down his back. He should have known better, of course, there was a reason he didn't nap. Always the fucking desert during naps.

 

He stretches to turn and roll out of bed, when a warm solid mass unexpectedly stops him. Blinking into focus comes a patch of expensive black fabric that elongates into a pair of legs, and then Sherlock, fingers steepled beneath his chin, like scaffolding.

 

He takes a deep, calming breath: 'Why are you...?'

 

'Shut up. I'm on a case. You don't talk to me when I am on a case.'

 

John stretches, cocking an eyebrow. Sherlock considers him crossly.

 

'You aren't normally on a case in my bed though, are you?'

 

Even the silence is sneering, but Sherlock's eyes are kind and his body is warm where it touches Johns.

 

'You were frightened. You've never complained before.'

 

John is about to point out that the fact he'd apparently not been bothered about sharing a bed before only served to illustrate his previous ignorance of the fact it was happening, actually, and that he might legitimately be bothered now, thank you very much, when Sherlock speaks again.

 

'You might want a towel. The books from the Thames are leaking all over your counterpane.'

 

There is altogether too little swearing in Baker Street most afternoons, and John takes a moment to rectify the lack. Then he complies, showers, makes tea, and begins to clean the kitchen. Sherlock is still in his bed.

 

He is just about to sit down with a piece of toast, when Sherlock bursts into the kitchen.

 

'Quickly, with your gun.'

 

He ran downstairs and opened the door.

 

'Mrs. Hudson, don't wait up. Its going to be a wonderful evening.'

 

                                                            ***

 

'So?' John waits until they're in the taxi.

 

'Opus Pierre, obviously not his real name. Archaeology at Cambridge, obsessed with provenance. He himself is of  Egyptian descent, an amusing point of irony to dissect when time is less pressing. Specializes in Egyptology. Predecessors disgraced the family name by producing fake antiquities, which were included in the Tutankhamen haul and later revealed. Boring. Had hoped for more elegance. Tattoos invocation of deity, revenge, dull dull dull DULL DULL.' He thumps the taxi window.

 

'Next victim to be mummified, easy. Molly said a nice new man had been hanging around the morgue, asking questions about embalming. Dust under the microscope and sand in his hair says we'll find them just upriver from the Southbank, Google informs me there is a restoration studio at the bottom of a luxury development. Ugh.'

 

Out of the window, London lies fallow, businessmen like beetles moving to and fro, nothing untoward, everything at pace. It would have been nice to have a little excitement, something to keep Sherlock otherwise engaged. Not that John can't think of twenty all-absorbing ways to engage him right now. _Mind out of your trousers, Watson, for Christ's sake. Even if he was in your bed an hour ago._

 

'What?'

 

The sudden bark has John's attention, irrationally worried that he has heard his thoughts, but Sherlock's knuckles are white around his phone.

 

 'And the brother is in custody? No, the Guatemalan prison registry was not a top priority.'

 

 His voice is icy, and John is secretly glad he never uses that particular tone on him.

 

'Do you know how long it takes to mummify someone?'

 

 A brief silence.

 

'Well quite.'

 

His attention is drawn to Sherlock’s fingers as he puts the phone down. They are shaking almost imperceptibly, a fine flutter that he doesn't recognize as part of Sherlock's physiological profile.

 

'The brother is a bomb maker.'

 

John shudders, represses it. Moriarty has sapped his enthusiasm for explosives.

 

'Ghastly cowardice John. Bombs are currently our number one most requested topic on your infernal blog.'

 

He knows that this is as close as Sherlock will ever come to nerves, a sneering reluctance to acknowledge that anything is amiss. His ears pick up the slightly shallow breathing, the eyes boring into him like chips of ice. He'd like to take his hand. He'd like to kiss him and tell the taxi driver to turn the fuck round and take them home, out of danger.

 

On cases Sherlock rarely talks unprompted, so he assumes that something in his manner is a question.

 

 'Sometimes, I lie in bed and long for a body. Something glorious - locked room, neat serial killer, something hard enough to divert from the constant shouting in my head. This, John, is what I do.'

 

'I know its what you do.' And its not as if he'd ever be allowed to forget it.

 

 He looks at Sherlock, whose head is cocked in a position so unnatural he looks as if he has a broken neck.

 

'Oh.' He shrugs and looks out of the window. 'Its what I do, too, I suppose. Must like the coffee at Scotland Yard.'

 

They both laugh quietly and he can see Sherlock’s shoulders dip, such a fine movement in a controlled body, the tiniest shiver on a Geiger Counter. You couldn't see it at all if you hadn't spent six months looking at him for a little too long.

 

***

 

The building is wired. _Wired to fucking buggery,_ as John remarks tiredly after they've observed it from every angle, discretely, using the higher buildings in the vicinity.

 

John scraped his leg on some loose guttering and would mug an old lady for a cup of tea.

 

'D'you think we could ask Mrs. Hudson to do call outs?'

 

Its lucky Sherlock isn't listening. He'd undoubtedly ring her.

 

He is pacing up and down the flat car park roof. They haven't seen anyone at the windows yet, only bundles of wire that Sherlock could safely neutralize in two seconds flat.  

 

That is good, of course, John remarks, but still twice the time it takes to detonate something. He could neutralize them too, and possibly in less time than it would take Sherlock, but he isn't volunteering for a competitive bomb neutralization session. He's done quite enough of those.

 

A chill wind springs up, Sherlock pulling his coat around him and straightening the collar up. John wishes he had worn a warmer jumper and is just about to pull his gloves out of the back pocket of his jeans when they see it. A pale, small face, pressed up against the glass like a Dickensian chimneysweep. Egyptian, possibly, although the light bounces oddly off the glass. The window is opened outwards, and the face is joined in view by an arm, which drops a weighted roll of paper to the ground. The window slams shut, the curtain drops, and Sherlock, before John can even register the absence, has flung himself down the steps towards it.

 

John knows that Sherlock knows better than him, and if it is a trap then this will be a calculated risk. It doesn't stop him holding his breath whilst he stays put (no point in both of them blowing cover, criminals rarely anticipate faithful backup, and that fact has saved them more times than he likes to think).

 

Sherlock grins up at him, and John feels his phone buzz.

 

_Cellar door behind the bins. Wait ten minutes. SH_

 

John can't see any bins, and the detective is out of his sightline now. He raises his eyebrows, braces himself, and starts down the concrete steps.

 

 

The smell of the cellar makes him gag: formaldehyde, medical preservatives and underneath it, the inescapable smell of decay. There are heavy glass jars stacked against the walls, making it difficult to find the door. Can't hear voices. Sherlock likes to talk down perpetrators, he's noticed. He personally prefers more of a 'handcuffs first, virtuoso performance later' approach. Neater.

 

The blackness is curiously comforting, sharpens his senses, and then there is a sharp crack underfoot like an IED coil and he's back in the desert, the same over-dark familiarity, risk of something unpleasant ready to trip you. He remembers what it feels like when your feet are your eyes and the pale grey stars are flood lamps when they peep from behind cloud. Beautiful. He kicks the broken glass gently out of the way. The floor is damp and sticky. John hopes the ferrous edge to the air does not mean he broke a jar full of blood.

 

The door eventually makes itself known, just when John is on the edge of whipping out his phone to illuminate the cellar, criminals be dammed. Grinning he pushes through into a carpeted hallway.

 

The noise would be deadened then, fanned paper on the walls and a plush carpet. No need to panic, then. The hall is fairly long, and, squinting he thinks he can make out a staircase curls up at the end. Who wallpapers a warehouse? Property developers, of course.

 

Well, he's going to track blood all the way up their plush carpeted stairs.

 

Before he turns the corner his eye is caught by a bundle of wires knotted by a squat locker. It is the fuse box, a similar model to the one in 221b, which Mrs. Hudson keeps bolted shut. He steps nearer, gingerly, trying to keep his breathing steady. They’ve wired the house up through the mains. Its the equivalent of an electric fence, the wires they thought were bombs. One brush and you'd be toast.

 

He crouches, using his phone to illuminate the switchboard. The bomber brother has obviously taught him well, but whoever started this clearly didn't expect to be interrupted. The wires enter the mains where there should be fuses, safety catches. If he can work out how to - fuck - he reminds himself that they are _live._ Deadening, Watson.

 

The world stills until John spots what he is looking for. Umbrella stand, wooden, rubber base. He reaches for it, savouring the balanced weight that tenses his arms. It is going to make a fucking sickening noise. Pausing for a moment before he lobs it, he texts Lestrade.

 

The wires disengage with a soft pop, pooling out onto the floor, the clips where they had been plugged in shattered. The umbrella stand clangs bluntly into a radiator, and it feels as if the whole house is shaking.

 

Upstairs, someone has just realized the problem, and a gunshot rings out. He races through the house, gun drawn.

 

'Subtle, John.'

 

Sherlock's voice does not shake. He is at gunpoint, his own gun kicked by the dirty fireplace. On the far side of the room, a gaunt child, no bigger than - of course, no bigger than the mummy he had noted down in the gallery - is bleeding onto the sofa, waxy red liquid seeping into the grey cushioning. It is not crying.

 

The man wielding the rifle - John briefly wonders why on earth he carries such a large gun -  boasts tired black eyes, and is wearing overalls. He has a thin, unpleasant beard, and his shoes are scuffed. He smells of formaldehyde.  John has his gun pressed into the small of Opus Pierre's back, and has the presence of mind to check with Sherlock, eyebrows raising into a question - before expertly taking the legs from under him and binding his wrists with cable ties. The rifle clatters to the floor.

Opus Pierre laughs, a high, thin cackle. 'Oh boys, boys, you didn't think I'd go without a fight, did you?'

 

Before John has a chance to reply, a cold white stripe runs across his neck. A blade. His eyes flicker to Sherlock's - Sherlock's are closed in irritation, and he is exhaling very slowly through his nose. Behind him, a black masked man with a gun to his temple is muttering something in Arabic. Sherlock replies, tartly. The black masked man - one of two, John can tell from the slight creak of leather as his assailant steadies the knife in the small of his back, is gesturing roughly toward the pale child on the couch, who seems to be swaying in and out of consciousness. It opens its eyes, and the man motions towards its jacket. He speaks again, and the child pulls at the zip, which slides down revealing an ugly concertina of wires and fuses, giving the macabre impression of it having been stuffed.

 

'Jesus.'

 

Opus Pierre's voice turns loping, terrifying pirouettes: 'Oh, the good guys always hate to see the child go, don't they? Well, gentlemen, we thought we'd give you something to really look at. You see, the wires need to wrap around the body, but they were a little too tight, weren't they  boys?' The thugs do not respond. 'So we just, well, popped some of them straight through, as it were! So convenient! Although a little unorthodox in embalming, and the little poppet is bound to bleed to death before anyone can save it.'

 

'Where's the other one?'  John can't help himself, the question is out as soon as he's thought it.

 

'In the bathroom. Hiding I think. We're letting her stay in there for the moment, although it’s terribly cold and yes, she's bleeding too.'

 

John knows how much Sherlock can handle, and its almost anything. In fact, he often wonders if the correlation between ingeniously foul murder and pleasure has any cut-off point. The one thing, however, that he has ever shown delicacy over, is children.

 

'Particularly fascinated by skin, aren't you Opus? The way it carries ink, the way it can be preserved, its un-fakeable quality. Yet you've marred them. Curious. Your previous murder was perfect, so - oh of course, how silly of me.'

 

'What, you pathetic little man?'

 

'Come now, no reason to be rude. We both know that now he's dead, there is no impetus. Terrible shame, really, clearing the family name on his behalf when he can't praise you for it. Brother imprisoned, father died about four hours ago, and you were stuck with these two. Terrible forward planning but then, your family aren't exactly known for making watertight plans.'

 

Opus Pierre lets out a horrific wet scream, wrenching himself almost upright, but unable to keep his balance.

 

With this, Sherlock's foot kicks out, his elbow shooting backwards and John bends himself double. Sherlock sends his assailant spinning, kicking Opus in the face, whilst John, holding the barrel of the weapon, pulls the masked man  over his body, using his weight against him. Now John has a gun, matching the man Sherlock has shaken off, and he motions for Sherlock to pick up his dropped weapon. They operate brilliantly like this, he briefly thinks, their movements synced, their intentions unspoken but understood, and for John it is as if the world tunes up into Technicolor. Both men are covered, in a hideous standoff, when Opus spins, kicking John's feet from under him with a thud. He hits the floor like a dead body, catching his trousers on the sharp corner of a table and feels, yet again, the metal of a gun in his back. A gun is fired, a single retort, and Opus Pierre lets out a bloodcurdling scream. John cannot twist to see behind him, and for a moment he hears his pulse rush like the sea in his ears, convinced the man with the gun to his back is about to shoot. He is about to call out to Sherlock to take the child and run, when there are thundering footsteps up the stairs:

 

'Everybody freeze! Hands up, if you don't mind.'

 

Lestrade is flanked by Gregson and Donovan, both looking hot, bothered and furious. Sherlock raises an imperious eyebrow: 'we were doing perfectly well, thank you.'

 

The two masked men raise their hands, muttering filthily in Arabic but not putting up a fight. Pierre is trying, although his hands remain tied behind his back, and he has fallen silent, his shoulders shaking. A dark stain is spreading out through the bottom half of his right trouser leg and he might, perhaps, be crying, and John really fucking hopes he is. The doctor is panting with exertion, his own leg throbbing: 'Two children. We need an ambulance. Quickly.' Donovan and Gregson are efficiently handcuffing the thugs, pulling off their balaclavas. They remain unmoved - men for hire.

 

John is over by the poor unconscious child immediately, undoing the dirty shirt and feeling the wires. His warm fingers on cold skin make the child moan, but it doesn't come round. The wires do not pierce the flesh right through, but the boy's torso carries a vicious knife wound into which they poke. Lestrade has hurried to the bathroom, and the other child emerges into the hallway with him, bleeding from the head but conscious, wailing, cringing away from the detective as he tries to wrap a filthy towel around her.

 

 Lestrade must have telephoned for Mycroft rather than call 999, because the ambulance arrives immediately, and paramedics rush in as the thugs, and Opus Pierre, whose leg wound the Met seem to be studiously ignoring, are manhandled into the back of a van by police in ... ah yes, there had been a bomb, perhaps, at one point, hence the Disposal Squad flapping about at the door. Someone else can break it to them, John thinks, he's not about to answer questions about the lobbing the umbrella stand.

 

'Knife wound, this one - must have been here several hours, the blood loss is extensive. Head trauma on the little girl -'

 

 

Sherlock interrupts: 'Run a search of any missing children reported in the last five hours. They're twins, in case you were too dense to notice, so if one needs a blood transfusion then you should know what to do. And be more fucking careful with them, you bunch of incompetents. They were very nearly killed and if they survive you apes it'll be a miracle.'

 

Sherlock is still waving a loaded gun around, face grey, staring murderously at the medics as they load the stretcher.

 

'So, erm, who shot 'im then?' Lestrade sidles up to John whilst he's trying to calm Sherlock down by vaguely patting at the back of his arms and muttering something about medical expertise. He raises an eyebrow, and John is fully aware that Greg already knows the answer. 'I wouldn't have bothered, no threat at that point, but you know how it gets if there are kids involved.'

 

Greg shoots him a grim look: 'I know how it gets when there are unlicensed firearms with fingerprints on them, and that's a pretty bit of paperwork, I can tell you, that he'll need to do. He hurt?'

 

'Nothing I'll get near until they're discharged.'

 

'You?'

 

'Fine, more or less. Hate bloody bomb scares though - pathetic fucker, with his heavies and his fakes. Creepy.'

 

'I'll bring a bunch of cold cases over tomorrow if he makes nice tonight.' Greg smiles, 'Pub?'

 

Don't you have to tie this up?'

 

'Technically, I'll be done when I'm dead, but no, I'm calling it a night, the crime scene's started blurring and Sally owes me.'

 

***

The Ox and Steed is a shabby little hole halfway between Greg's and 221b. Everywhere else on the stretch is a wine bar and Greg, by rights, should live somewhere leafy and suburban, not a smart flat in zone one. Post-divorce D.I.s do not have penthouse money. Mycroft's rendezvous in the car park flashes unbidden into his mind. Perhaps Lestrade knew a good deal when he heard one.

 

The landlady's a bridge partner of Mrs. Hudson's and the possible source of those bloody soothers he keeps trying to confiscate, but it means a free pint whenever he looks particularly worn out, and as many out-of-date packets of peanuts as he can eat.

 

He finds them a corner table and Greg stands him a pint of 'Pride: he is extremely grateful.

 

'Sneaking away from crime scenes to go drinking: perk of being mates with the DI.'

 

'Spending half your life at crime scenes: curse of being mates with a Holmes.' Greg counters, tipping the edge of his glass against John's. 'Wouldn't be worth it if it weren't for the perks.'

 

'Mates. God I bloody hate that word.' The venom is tempered by a pull of his pint but

Greg sucks a whistling breath through his teeth.

 

'Bloody hell, I don't want to know - although, does that mean you've come over to our side?'

 

John grins into his pint.

 

'You don't have a side, as you well know.'

           

Lestrade chuckles. 'You used to though, mate. All them pretty girls you used to have hanging round the flat - that nice one at Christmas. Great arse.'

 

Greg drops consonants with John, which always flatters him.

 

'What makes you think anything has changed?'

 

'Come off it. Black eyes, barely speak to Sherlock, the number of times he has fucking called me on a Tuesday. I am a DI for a reason, whatever he says.' Greg raises his eyebrows. 'And mate, you talked about girls. Sarah this, Sarah that - and then nothing. Nothing, fine, but I don't imagine you going without like the rest of us.'

 

'Captain John Watson, MD, part time shirt lifter. Christ Greg, I wasn't exactly going to pop a notice on the door.'

 

'That's not why you've stayed so quiet.'

 

Greg fixes him with a long look. For the second time in one evening, John finds his mouth opening.

 

'I'm fucked.' He raises his hands in supplication. 'We just... fit. Not that I think he'd ever - and besides, doesn't - he'd never - not with anyone as _normal_ and _boring_ as me.'

 

Greg doesn't think about the pool Anderson and Donovan are running. He thinks about John's infinite patience, his war decorations that he keeps quiet, the way his face lights up on the rare moments Sherlock asks his opinion. Poor bloke.

 

The football highlights flash onto the telly and they both shut up, John running his tongue round the inside of his teeth. Lestrade's a decent bloke, and he probably didn't need to know that.

 

Third pint, John's up at the bar, Landlady forces two anemic looking plates of chips into his hands.  'Oh the 'owse. Going down the bin otherwise.'

 

They both know that the other one won't have eaten since breakfast. Hell will freeze over before Lestrade gets a lunch break, and John doesn't eat when he's stressed. Greg's moaning about Anderson, the way he is always dropping stories about his wife round Sally.

 

'He shouldn't go cocking about, boasting.'

 

John doesn't mention that Sally text him more than once early on, before she worked out who he was devoted to.

 

'Of course you and him fit, you know?' Greg is half a pint off slurring, and John, who switched to coke after two, wonders if that over-enunciation of Greg's is used on anybody else. He hopes it is. It’s quite appealing.

 

'You're his 'eart and he's, like, the 'ead. I'm sure he wants you. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense.'

 

'You seeing anyone?'

 

It'd be nice, proper, if Lestrade had someone, John things fondly. He's a top bloke.

 

John is perhaps further gone than he thought.

 

'Me. Nah mate. Haven't since the papers came through. Work's pretty busy, too.'

 

It was nice, this, soldier and a policeman, hidden talents and soft secrets bunched in under uniforms and just-ironed shirts. John shreds napkins when he's frustrated, little pile next to his left hand.

 

At the bar, last orders have attracted the few late drinkers, shoving change at the landlady. Lestrade rolls his shoulders with a loud pop - scaling a chain link fence too fast last month, not that he could have gone any slower and still caught them - and he picks up his coat. John's chair doesn't squeak along the floor: he's sitting devastatingly still, both hands wrapped round the empty pint glass.

 

'He's ... he won't understand. See Why. A reason, and I don't have one ... it won't go over.'

 

'Don't have to tell him tonight mate. Not if you're pissed as I am, any road.'

 

John turn left, headed up his road quickly, but not quickly enough to miss the sleek black Jaguar that is idling silently on the far side of the pavement. It pulls up level with the grubby doors of the Ox, and stops to let Greg in. Unless Scotland Yard've been given significant budget extensions...

 

Alone, the ten-minute walk to the flat stretches longer than a march with a loaded pack. All of the myriad misconceptions, blank rejections, laughing acts of not -quite - spitefulness, simply unapologetic, unrelenting, derisiveness that might wait behind the front door swim into view.

                                                            ***

 

Sitting on the shelf where it gathers very little dust is the first aid kit, minus the more exotic narcotic offerings. Sherlock is pulling his shirt off when John rounds the top of the stairs, the long planes of muscles tensing minutely in the gust of cold air from the front door. He usually wants John to let him deal with his injuries alone, but he's left the bathroom door open and there John is, leaning on the doorway, pulling a face in sympathy.

'Anderson threw me out. I've told him he can forge the rest. Nice pint? Surprised Lestrade was able to get away, but tell him he needn't have concerned himself, the twins were returned to their rightful owners, although not really, they were kept in overnight.' He's chattering through his adrenaline; John suspects he does it alone if he's out.

 

'Can you reach that?' The gash on his back might scar without butterfly stitches.

 

'Apparently I lack sufficient aesthetic concern regarding scarification, my back a case in point. I find physical vanity a hindrance in my line of work.'

 

'Wonderful. Given there is a doctor in the house, shall I? Its directly over the - what are they? - flogging scars, and I’m worried about the double layering of scar tissue...'

 

Wonder has crept into his voice. Sherlock bristles: why now, of all the times he'd seen his back, treated wounds, this was the night to codify them? Nobody except Mycroft once, and that had been only the briefest of exhalations, had ever given any sign they'd seen that small patch of unmistakable scarring, let alone identified its cause.

 

John Watson feels his cock twitch, hard, and he imagines running his tongue, his cheek (his cock) over the scars, caring so well for any marks he might make alongside them that they would fade without trace.

 

The cold tap drips loudly. 'Very well then, but use something flexible. It'll be worse if it tears and I shall most probably be at the violin for days now.'

 

'What’s it like this time?' Tone light, hands busy.

 

'Dull, dull, dull. Like standing in Piccadilly during in rush hour and closing your eyes to find you're actually on a tube in rush hour into which somebody has just thrown a bomb. Everything screams.'

 

John's allowed to ask. Or more precisely, he bloody well will ask, whether or not Sherlock answers. The black moods sour the atmosphere, and before the end something has always shattered, or needs reupholstered, or they're billed for something awful in next month's rent. But  he misses him on those days, has caught himself more recently, eyes pricking with tears, staring for twenty minutes at a time, tracking the rise and fall of bony shoulders.

 

By the time he has run his mind over these things, he has patched him up.

 

'Let me see your bruises.' Sherlock sounds as disinterested as he can, 'you cut your thigh, I can smell the blood.'

 

Bit not good, say raised eyebrows.

 

He sighs, ' _see_ the blood then, but I _can_ smell it, smell that you got the cut two and a half hours ago, that it opened again when you  ran up the stairs, that you have reduced iron levels because you haven't eaten properly in days, all right?'

 

John undoes his belt roughly, shucks off his jeans and pulls his fingers through his hair, nervous. 'I can do it myself, you know.' This case is not going up on the blog as 'The Case of Tattoos and No Trousers.' He's half hard,  torn between willing it away, hoping Sherlock doesn't notice, or catching his eye and daring him to mention it.

 

It’s going ok, well, even, Sherlock busying himself with antiseptic, until he kneel down to clean the wound itself. The gash is towards the back of John's thigh, the tender space where the skin subtly transforms at the border of an erogenous zone. It'll ache sitting in the clinic's chairs all day come next shift.

 

Sherlock kneels behind him, tapping one ankle with his finger so that John opens his legs, and then leans forward so that his forehead was almost resting across the band of John's briefs. (Tight briefs. Why hadn't today been a boxers day? He'd never regretted a decent pair of underwear more.)

 

Then he felt Sherlock's breath ghost over him, making the muscles of his arse twitch involuntarily. That Sherlock would do this, lean into him with such fierce concentration, such care... Sherlock's fingers pull cotton wool over the graze and the antiseptic stings, mercifully. It hurts properly when he pauses over the deeper part of the cut, and John has never been more grateful for pain. He had been growing precariously close to full hard-on territory, and he flatters himself that even from behind, it’s fairly hard to miss.  He hears Sherlock's voice, a little fuller than he's used to:

 

'So Sarah was purportedly the last one, but tell me, when did you actually stop sleeping with women?'

 

Cold, deductive, the tone rips across him and he's trapped between Sherlock and the sink: he feels his face flush, the bottom of his stomach swooping dangerously.

 

'And how many days after that did you resume your physical relationships with men?'

 

'Same day it was none of your fucking business.'

 

'Ah, the same day as the first bet then.'

'Get out of my way. Right now.'

 

The tone that made new Privates listen, wish they hadn't been caught out. Stepping neatly sideways to the door, he flings it open, and Sherlock stalks neatly through it, his face a perfect mask. John steps heavily backwards, kicking over the bottle of TCP and not even bothering to curse.

 

***

 

He feels as though he's been winded, wishes he could have seen Sherlock's face when he asked, that all this pissing about would be over and Mycroft could just send him somewhere, get him killed, and turn him into a skull, so he could be around Sherlock forever without feeling anything anymore. They’d already killed for each other, spent time in the same bed with apparent regularity, created a domestic sphere which, though he'd never admit it, was the nicest home he'd ever had, and he'd abandoned all thought of any relationships other than shitty, wretched sex with tall thin men.

 

But the revelation that he fucked men was an entirely separate one from any revelation as to Sherlock's feelings towards him. Worlds, un-spannable silent worlds of difference separated those things.

 

He'd hazard a guess at fond, same as he felt for Mrs. Hudson and, on good nights, Lestrade. None of it mattered, he couldn't have him anyway, for reasons too numerous and maudlin to count.

 

He stuck his hands in his pockets, the night now cooling. His hand closed over a thin plastic card. Not his, his cards were still with Sherlock. Black, with _JH Watson_ emblazoned on the top right-hand corner. Turning it over slowly, certain it was going to explode, he found a small post-it stuck on the back, a note written in a sloping, neat hand:

_Upstairs from the Diogenes Club. One night only._

 

He frankly couldn't give a rat's arse, at this point, if it’s a ticket to his own grisly death (a possibility, of course, although he's pretty sure that the address is for Mycroft's club). He just hopes there's alcohol wherever this lets him in.

 

                                                            ***

 

There is in fact, a strict no alcohol rule, and breathalyzers on the door, wielded by men in very plain black suits that reveal nothing at all about the potential activities of whatever this establishment purports to be. They check his card and a small man with a mild face takes him off to one side to explain the rules. John carefully schools his face, as it slowly dawn's on him what’s going on.

 

'Good evening Doctor Watson. Cloakroom off to the right, we do ask that all weapons be checked in. Everyone has the same safe word, sir, _Daphne_ , which we would ask that you observe.'

 

He nods curtly, as if anxious to get going.

 

'And which roll will you be in this evening, sir?' Scrupulous politeness met with  a swallowed gasp of disbelief and John's mind bends back unbidden to Sherlock's surly remark that his brother was a liar and a fat pervert.  Evidently.

 

'Erm, I'll, I mean I'm - um - dominant Thanks.'

 

The doorman produces a thin blue ribbon: 'Might I ask that you wear this at all times sir? And we do ask that members request special facilities ahead of time if they wish to draw blood.'

 

Suddenly, the hallway constricts at the thought of everything John _could_ do without requiring anything special at all. Not how he'd been planning his evening (beer, curry, early night), but he could feel heat gathering between his legs. Damn Mycroft.

 

He steps into a dark corridor, the walls holly-green, studded with lamps that cast a gentle, flattering glow. John draws himself up inside his coat, shoulders squared, _best foot forward, sir_. He grins.

 

He's been  once or twice to places with loud music and twats in cheap fetish gear: weekenders. He swallows heavily. Unlikely that Mycroft would settle for anything like that.

 

John wonders vaguely how he knows, what files you have to dig up on someone before practices undertaken privately and between consenting adults come to light. He can't quite imagine him in either position, but bound and submitting seems the more unlikely of the two. Somewhere inside, he thinks if might be even less likely with Sherlock.

 

The corridor bends to the left and opens out into a remarkably cozy carpeted room, all deep plum colours. It looks, in fact very similar to the Diogenes Club, a fire flickering honeyed light over deep armchairs. The singular difference is that the clientele are all wearing ribbons, and in darkened corners some of them are touching quietly, hushed moans getting lost in the carpet.

 

Several yellow-ribboned men pique his interest, but he stays hovering close to the fire. His eyes scan the room as he attempts to keep his breathing deep. A soft noise directly beside him - a very pretty man, tall thin, with curled blonde hair.

 

'Are you booked this evening, sir?' His voice is low and sweet. The noise goes straight to John's cock.

 

'Dangerously free, actually.'  He focuses on the wisps of heat building within him, the slow curve of the man's smile.

 

The firelight makes it all feel like a dream, and John floated along, satisfyingly detached.

 

They enter a small room with a bed, two high-backed chairs, and a gilt-edged mirror that hangs over the fireplace. The blond man sits on a low chair, and John hesitates, wonders if he should remain standing.

 

'Charlie': the blond man smiles.

 

'John.'

 

'I know. I was told I'd be expecting you.'

 

'Lets not mention the fact that you've been specially briefed to please me. Call me old fashioned, but I don't think that is going to work.' Forcing himself to speak in full sentences keeps him calm but still, it shouldn't be quite so easy to do.

 

Charlie nods thumbing a shirt button, unsure.

 

'What do you want?' Right question.

 

'Nothing you won't like.' Charlie raises an eyebrow. 'Look. I'm probably less kinky than Mycroft, ok? Its psychological, I like being - like being in control, the give, and take, and the peace it brings.'

 

'Doctor or Sir?' It is such a pretty question, nicely asked, by a man who, in fifteen years of experience easily counted among the best looking. But as soon as Charlie spoke, John felt a long, slow sadness, all arousal ebbing out. Sherlock wouldn't have to ask. He'd know that 'John', said with the right weight of purpose, was twice as powerful as any title.

 

When it had happened before, he'd needed to clear his head, the angry burning of desire and frustration simply too loud. He'd always drunk enough to block out the image of Sherlock wandering around the flat alone, or bathing in that haphazard way of his, something loud and classical on the CD player which he'd drag onto the landing, limbs over the sides of the bath, door open, as if this were still boarding school and communal bathing were commonplace. Or the way he would curl into John on those nights on the sofa they never mentioned, when Sherlock hinted at the day’s blackness in passing and John suddenly felt the proximity of every coke dealer in London.

 

But here he was sober, and sober was cheating. This wouldn't clear his head, or drown out anything. If he couldn't have this with Sherlock, he found that he didn't want it at all.

 

'Whose at home?' Charlie's voice from the bed where he had paused halfway through unbuttoning his shirt.

 

'What?'

 

Is he a prostitute, then, if he's used to - unbothered by - the sudden paralyzing onset of guilt in his clients?

 

 'You can tell me.'

 

The  crackle of the fire startles him he speaks without meaning to: 'My flat mate He.. He's gay, maybe, perhaps asexual. Doesn't date, doesn’t get laid, doesn't even wank as far as I can...'

 

'You do his laundry?' Charlie's smiling.

 

'Yeah, I do, sometimes.' And the cleaning, and most of the cooking if there ever was any, not to mention medicating him, healing his wounds...

 

'He's so fucking clever. Frighteningly clever, but we fit, maybe. Think he likes the fact I keep  my trap shut....' Not when I'm chatting to prostitutes of an evening, it turns out.

 

Charlie opens his mouth but John waves away the sound. He's  is a patient man but his whole life is ruled by glorious interruptions from a more important person and actually, if he isn't going to get his rocks off, then the best possible outcome is that he finally gets to talk about this with someone who will shut the fuck up and listen.

 

'I want him like this. Want to fuck him until his brain shuts up, shuts down.'

 

He pauses, testing Charlie, who stays quiet.

 

'Of course I couldn't have him. Not like this. I know what I'd do if I could though. Start him off slowly, take his clothes off.' John palms himself through his trousers, his breath speeding up.

 

'Reveal him inch by inch because he looks as if he's carved from marble but I know how warm he'd be, lithe and alive. And I'd make him take off his clothes until God, his cock. You know, I can't imagine it properly? You'd think, the amount of time I spend trying... But I'd talk to him, tell him how hard he makes me, how special he is, how good I'm going to make him feel. And then I'd, fuck, it depends. I've always wanted to - hngh - spank him, God knows he pushes me, practically begs to be disciplined. Spank him until he's hard and leaking against my lap, arse red, eyes glazed over with that bliss you get when you slip under.'

 

John's properly hard now. He glances over at Charlie, his eyes closed, hands under his waistband.

 

'Or I'd tie his hands - use my belt,' his breath catches,  'shove him up against the wall so he had to take every inch of me into his mouth. And God he'd learn so fast, he's so quick, how light it'd make him feel, pleasing me -  he'd crave , need me coming on his face or over his arse, not let him cum until I was hard again, so he'd know I was going to draw it out, fuck him until he couldn't speak.'

 

Charlie's breath stutters and John's torn between telling him not to touch himself and letting him continue because lets face it, he might be the only person who ever gets off on this.

 

'I'd talk to him through it. I don't know what he'd like, if he'd want names or reassurances, I'd give him both, take him apart. Fuck. Take him apart until he doesn't know his own name, can only feel my hands on him, my cock in his arse, my name on his lips, until he realises how fucking perfect we would be together.' He forces his hands by his sides, before he got off.

 

Charlie groans. He clearly isn't all the way there but John's damned if he's going to give him the satisfaction. Picking up his jacket from the back of the chair he stands by the door, unsure of the etiquette and less sure he cares about the proper way to bid goodbye to such a non-encounter.

 

'Thanks' He coughs, halfway into the corridor already.

 

'Don't worry. Its pretty much exactly what I was expecting.'

 

'Fucking Mycroft', he mutters, and gives his card in at reception. If, five minutes after him, a tall shadowy figure slips out, he's too wrapped up in thought to notice.

 

John Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Regiment, too soft on someone who probably doesn't feel the same, too deeply involved to go out and get laid. London thrums a reproach, corporeal and heady in the darkness, full of potential encounters for a half-hard ex-soldier. If it was a mater of pride, he's disposed of that pretty thoroughly this evening, somewhere between Sherlock's drawn face and Charlie's shirt buttons. He runs his hands through his hair, rubs his eyes: time to face the music. He wonders if Mike Stamford will let him move in when this all backfires.

 

 

 

           

***

 

221b is dark. If he just avoids the stair that creaks he can get to bed. Sherlock doesn't call out and no light flick on. Perhaps sleep has overtaken him: it is, after all still the final day of the case, just, and however dull it had been Sherlock was still low on sleep. John's hands clench - he'll go mad with the weight of it all if Sherlock's under for days. As he stands in the hall, adrenaline-alert, he catches a soft whisper of movement from Sherlock's bedroom, the slipping-off of a dressing gown, perhaps. All at once he breathes in and knocks gently on the door. Silence. Tense, held, silence, the moment between one decision and another, the air thickening.

 

The door swings inwards and he peers into the gloom. Sherlock keeps the bed-half of his room sparse, all clothes hanging, whilst the other half functions as a highly toxic playground, the preferred location of any experiment banned from the kitchen on safety grounds. As a result, the window is usually open, but now its shut, the room overwhelmingly hot and smelling faintly of chlorine. Sherlock is on the floor, taut as a piano wire, back to the edge of his bed.

 

[deleted scene]He is pressed against John, who has somehow become lodged against the doorframe before John has time to open his mouth.

 

'You might have said something.' It’s a growl.  His hands are fisted in John's lapels and it suddenly sinks into place. Sherlock is breathing, his slim frame shaking with a mixture of fury, amusement, and arousal, John thinks, given the dilation of his pupils and the gentle opening of his lips.

 

'You think its been fun, John? You're dense, I grant you, but all of this fucking waiting around whilst you slunk off down alleys and diverted your eyes when I bathed. I'm not having it anymore. I'm yours: if you don't want me, fine, but you're not to have anyone else, ever again, at least until I know.'

 

Semantic breakdown. If this were any other day there would be point scoring, John would call a cup of tea for being able to make Sherlock stumble. But the lithe frame of the detective is pressed up against him with wild urgency, almost vibrating with tension, and he can smell his hair, his hot skin smell, and the faint hint of tea.

 

'You're mine, are you?' He raises an eyebrow and abruptly pitches his weight to the left, spinning Sherlock round until he's the one with the raised doorframe digging into his spine. Lust spikes in his trousers and John doesn't want to be good at self-control, not this evening, not really ever again, so he pushes up against Sherlock, palms flat against his chest, listening to his chest hammering.

Sherlock gasps, eyes wide.

 

'Because you've fucking kept me waiting too, haven't you?'

 

This is John, who in his fantasies is sometimes a cadaver, parts laid out for greater investigation, eyes mounted and unwinking in some vice, better to glint in the light and keep his gaze. He'd unwind him lovingly into separate parts, investigate the wounds and lacquer them for consideration, adoration.

He wants John to stamp him out, reduce him, keep him supine and without dignity. John will never do that, he is too good, and where there is room for Sherlock to be himself, there is room for scorn and meanness and being a terrible lover. Sherlock would be a terrible lover. John is too good for him and so he will ruin him.

 

It is clear then John cannot come to him on terms approaching fair or sane ( _dull_ ) if they are his. Hands that want to adore and know how best to do it with a scalpel or a syringe must learn how to love him living, non-compliant, willful. He hopes John knows his own terms, is strong enough to steer them both.

 

'You said you - it - would shut my mind up. Cocaine doesn't do that. Nothing does that.'

 

'You didn't only take cocaine.' Sherlock's rumbling baritone is low, but John, John's voice when it is hard and silken all at the same time, promising danger like polished steel and pulsing adrenaline through Sherlock's body, better, sharper than the feeling of even the best coke in London, and God, he should know.

 

'Perhaps. Three per cent margin for error - did you know that?.' He is talking almost into John's lips, the vibrations fucking infuriating. 'I underestimated you. Had no idea what you - even when Mycroft hinted we were compatible - and I can't have it any other way.'

 

He'd confided in Mycroft? Jesus Christ. John casts his mind back - perhaps when Sherlock had been in hospital last, woozy with concussion?

 

Sherlock continues, 'you tried everything you wanted to do to others on yourself first... so you could design and curate the experience properly... No, John, you're not an experiment, not boring like breathing.'

 

'Can't have it any other way?'

 

John is so close now, and all Sherlock wants to do is crane his neck forward ever so slightly and finally kiss the beautiful, distracting, vital man he finally has in front of him.

'No.' He breathes out, 'honestly, you of all people -- when have I ever done things by halves? Its a drug like any other, and I can only have that if its administered by someone else, someone who I trust, and there's never been anyone who I - and now there is you.'

 

The sky could combust over Baker Street, John thinks, and he wouldn't even notice, lost in the sudden vulnerability of Sherlock Holmes, his body singing with desire.

 

Roughly looping his arms around Sherlock's neck John tilts his head slightly forward, taking one sharp, preparatory - military - breath in, and brings his mouth close to Sherlock's, running his tongue over his lips once before, finally, closing the gap that ought never to have been there.

 

Sherlock thinks he might die. John's lips cut out his own name from his head but fill it with heat, wet, _us us us_ , want, sucking everything else into blackness. John licks and presses his way into Sherlock's mouth, gently, so gently, as if unsure of the power he yields. John kisses, of course, as if he'd been born to do it. Gradually growing  bolder, his lips parting, Sherlock subconsciously mirrors  John, and the kisses gain heat, intensity, until a noise, somewhere between a satisfied groan and a needy whimper is torn from Sherlock's throat.  He tries to analyze it, can't. He's never made that noise before and now all he wants is to do it again, again, again.

 

Sherlock is pleased when his exploration of John's mouth ( _tea, fear, breath run through with an unbelievable note of self, as if he could taste childhood, university, the sand of Afghanistan_ ) pulls forth a long, frankly filthy moan. He bucks against the shorter man, pulling him closer, returning the noise. The part of his brain, which considers these things, seems suddenly to whirr into life. John Watson: unafraid to use his hands; noisy, hard, most likely, devastatingly good in bed.

 

John has written this kiss hundreds of time: in the shower, in bed, hunched over the sink. But this, the long planes of Sherlock's body pressed against him, a fine sheen of sweat beginning on his neck, surpasses everything.

John feels black curls slipping through his fingers like silk as he pulls Sherlock's head back, exposes his neck and finds the pulse point. He bites at it sharply, letting his teeth drag when he hears the hiss of Sherlock's breath. _Fucking hell_ he wants to break the skin, bruise him. He runs his tongue down Sherlock's long neck, relishing the taste of his sweat, until he bites down on the edge of his collarbone, feeling heat bloom under his mouth where a bruise will form. Sherlock grasps  a fistful of his shirt tightly, pushing against him. John's hand runs over the flogging scar, his fingers pressing into it.

 

'Loss of sensation?'

 

'Quite the opposite. That feels... lovely.'

 

John's temperature rockets, he runs his hands down Sherlock’s sides hard, rucking up his shirt where it meets his suit trousers.

 

'Take your fucking clothes off, Sherlock.'

-

‘-of course I ought to have deduced it the moment I met you.’

 

 John’s mouth crinkles slightly and he pauses, hovers between enjoying the fact that Sherlock is willing to admit overlooking something, and being aware that whatever comes next will likely sting.

 

‘Military, giving and receiving orders. You’re a medic, too: men are doubly likely to do what you tell them, and of course you are too professional to ever break rank for a fuck, John, you know I know that, but I bet you enjoyed the ease with which they came to respond, the way you could bring them on. Made Captain fast - I’ve seen your decoration for exceptional courage.’

 

John is on the verge of berating him for going through his sodding pants drawer - although since following him to a sex club, he supposes that what constitutes an indiscretion has somewhat shifted - when Sherlock drops his voice.

 

‘I would have very much enjoyed witnessing you under commission.’

 

‘Like the boys in green then?’ John smirks, but he's twenty seconds from reminding Sherlock that he just gave an order, actually.

 

‘Military dress tends to suit small men.’  And there’s the sting.

 

‘Small? I might be small, but you’ll fucking well drop to your knees for me.’ Well. He doesn’t quite know where that came from, although of course they have been dancing around it since he came in. Sherlock raises an eyebrow, doesn't disagree.

 

His eyes meet John’s: his colour is high, a flush creeping along his neck, and he maintains eye contact as he drops soundlessly to his knees on the carpet.

 

'Scared?' John smiles at him. Walks closer. Sherlock grins foolishly, blushing. John's never seen him do that before. He likes it.

 

''cos you ought to be.'

 

Sherlock paws at his shirt buttons until John, in frustration, pulls him upright and with one thumb rubbing gently over his lips, smearing Sherlock's saliva, he flicks the buttons undone with one hand. Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

 

'Surgeon,' he grunts in response.  'Oh, fuck, you're pretty.' Its different like this, now he's allowed to look. Sherlock's flushed pink, nipples dark and peaking, chest almost smooth, running to a slim line of hair which begins just above his belly button. His stomach is taut, ribs slightly raised, the muscles of his sides jumping under John's hands.

 

He can feel him breathing in to complain.

 

'Handsome. Rugged. Whatever. Get your trousers off.'

 

Sherlock smiles, more in the glittering of his eyes than the soft press of his lips, and John meets his eyes to grin as he steps away, noticing Sherlock's hips cant slightly at the loss of him. John motions that he can stand.

 

The shorter man strips his shirt efficiently, folding it on the floor. John Watson stripping off as though - well of course, he'd slept in barracks long enough. Sherlock wondered what they'd catcalled when he changed. His military bearing is oddly more obvious when he's naked, the musculature specific to military regime, and his shoulders stay squared.  John is stripping for him, and his mind is clogged and almost over-stimulated with disbelief.

 

'John.' He breathes out reverence and desire and _god_ , he hides his body well.

 

Sherlock's eyes are almost back, crescents of blue just apparent and sparkling.

 

'Not much to look at.'

 

The last person to see John naked was Sarah, and that had been an accident, and she'd worried about his mental health under those tattoos. Sherlock has flogging marks.

 

'Quite the opposite, doctor.'

 

Sherlock moves to him, rubbing his face over the tattoo on John's shoulder, his nose marking out the pattern. 'Smells like ink.'

 

John pauses.

 

 'Its true. When you sweat, tiny quantities of ink, they...'

 

He wraps his arms round Sherlock, maouvering him so he can push him down onto the bed. Straddling him, he brings his hand level with his shoulders, tongue laving over neck and collarbone. He slips his thumb under the edge of Sherlock's boxers, and he breathes in hard.

 

'Sherlock.'

 

His eyes meet the taller man's and his hands work the band of his boxers down over. John doesn't know how long its been since Sherlock was naked like this with someone else, but the aristocratic curl of his lips and the way he stretches himself feline on the bed indicates that he likes to be looked at, admired. Well, colour John surprised. But the huffed-out breath and the way his eyes dart imply that, perhaps, he's not as comfortable as he'd like to be.

 

'Just transport is it? Trust you to have a fucking BMW.'

 

He can't trust his mouth when he's hard. He won't ever tire of looking at that though, now he's seen it.  The flare of his hips, his long leg muscles. Sherlock, stuttering hands to match his breath, is walking his fingers over the waistband of John's belted trousers.

 

He bends without thinking to kiss at the sensitive tip of Sherlock's half-hard cock, mouthing softly over his frenulum. Sherlock gasps and shuts his eyes tight. John's cock jolts so hard, and he can taste Sherlock, sweet salt and the heaviness of flesh.

 

Jesus but its a lovely cock. It's longer than John's, thinner and beautifully pale, darkening only at the top. The foreskin is long, sitting almost closed to the end, and John feels his mouth water. He wants to rub his lips over the velveteen skin, tease the bead of precum that is already forming, make Sherlock noisy, uncontrolled.

 

'John, you're staring.' Sherlock wriggles, letting his thighs jostle together.

 

'Of course I fucking am. You seen yourself?'

 

''d rather look at you.'

 

He lifts up off Sherlock, whose mouth is fluttering over the tattoo on his shoulder, making his eyes roll back, shoves his jeans and boxers off, freeing his cock which bobs to his stomach, brushing against Sherlock's thigh and making him grit his teeth.

 

A change is noticeable in Sherlock immediately: his breathing shallows, his muscles relax and the lids of his eyes hood over. He licks his lips.  Calmed by seeing John's prick - maybe he's going to be a natural at this.

 

'John.' His voice is lower than John has every heard it, a subsonic purr. 'Fuck.' He rolls the curse around in his mouth, drawing out the vowel of it.

 

'Yeah?' John preens slightly, rocks back up so that he is straddling Sherlock, runs his hands down Sherlock's arms to grasp his wrists, pulls them tight over his head, pins him.

 

Sherlock lets out a moan, halfway between arousal and relief. John leans into him, noses almost touching, and pushes down against his wrists for emphasis. He flicks his tongue over Sherlock's earlobe, making the taller man buck up against him.

 

'God I'm going to make you feel so good,' his voice is no more than a whisper.

'If you're sure you want this?'

 

Sherlock's eyes snap open: ' _Fluoride_. John, I can tell the relative temperature of your internal organs from your breath, can tell you exactly what Mrs. Hudson is doing downstairs, where the ambulance three streets away is headed and why it is not going fast enough, what the married ones next door ate for breakfast. I can accurately predict the flood risks for Baker Street based on the work the men up the road have been poorly completing for days and I can tell you that in twelve minutes a couple are going to have a screaming row outside Speedy's. Please, _please_ shut it up. You are the only person who can, and I may be capable of balancing the majority of the known universe simultaneously, but I'd at this juncture I'd rather be passing out with pleasure from your - cock - in me, and gasping my gratitude as to the unsurpassable experience I am sure it is bound to be.'

 

John grins, ear to ear, and looks at his open, hopelessly honest face, as if all of his Christmases have arrived simultaneously, along with the rugby highlights for the season and one of Mrs. Hudson's cooked breakfasts. In an instant, John's whole body shifts and realigns, and his military heritage seems to manifest again.

 

'I'm not going to tie you up. You keep your arms above your head until I tell you move them, and legs spread. You'll keep your mouth shut unless it’s to answer me, or take my cock. No backchat. You're cocky, you think you're such a fast learner - if it turns out you're wrong, you'll feel that back of my hand in ways you've never even dreamed of. I expect a high standard from you Sherlock. Understand?'

 

'Yes.'

 

Blue eyes bore into him.

 

'Yes, John.'

 

John revels in it just for a second: he's wanted to hear that for what feels like his whole life. Sherlock spreads his legs, not far enough,  so John roughly parts his thighs, the pressure unrelenting until he can slot in, hip to hip. Sherlock's blood sings, heart suddenly pummeling his chest,  the proximity of skin, blood under skin, arousal, sweat, data settling on the knife edge between not enough and too much. John pulls his hips roughly across Sherlock’s, and he feels a bead of precum, his he thinks, but it could belong to either and that excites him so much, slide onto his stomach.

 

'Hard for me already, aren't you? Cock weeping and we haven't even started. There'll be a mess before we're done, and you'd better make sure you clear it up.' John slips his hand between them, wraps it loosely around the base of Sherlock's cock and runs it up the length. He is so aroused he can practically see stars, doesn’t know the words to make John give him more. The play of John's voice over his ears makes him calmer and more excited, and he cannot quite believe he hasn't insisted on this before now. And _alive_ \- the first time he prefers a live thing, because it can bestow such pleasure, nearly as much pleasure as a fascinating corpse. Better, because this could be repeated, forever and ever.

 

 'Fuck, John.'

 

His blood is singing and he hasn't even received direct stimulation.

 

'You're close already, aren't you?'

 

 John's smiling, but the words sound too laboured to be entirely mocking. Sherlock whines at the removal of the damp pressure, until John's body bends like a bow and Sherlock shuts his eyes against the physics of it, until John's mouth is suddenly sucking a spot just below his hipbone and Sherlock could tell you the name of every muscle, every nerve, but not why this makes his heart warmer and his eyes roll back.

 

John nearly comes when he breathes in Sherlock's scent. He works back and forth into the crease of Sherlock's thighs: he is determined to make him come harder than he ever has done and then hopes he'll demonstrate his - no doubt incredibly swift  - refraction time, before fucking him solidly into the mattress.

 

He breathes over Sherlock's cock - damp, hot air, making it twitch every time he exhales. Sherlock’s stomach falls and rises and John winks up at him, unable to resist, and then swallows him down until his nose is buried in the thatch of his hair.  The detective tastes salty, heavy and velvet soft. The vein on his cock stands out prettily, and he tongues over and over at the ridge of it. He mouths the foreskin down and licks tight circles around the glans, keeping hold of Sherlock's hand, stroking his thumb over the back of it whenever he gasps or twitches, and moans around him, the pure pleasure of control keeping him near the edge.

 

Sherlock is gulping down deep breaths that shake his body like sobs. It feels as if John's tongue were a needle, every lick pulsing something irreplaceable, vital, under his skin.

 

'John-'

 

The heat of John's mouth, the authority of it: Sherlock's body pulls tight, and John smiles around his cock, slides his free hand down to rub and fondle at Sherlock's balls, at the sweat-warm space behind.

 

'Come for me, come on.' He mutters along the end of Sherlock's cock.

 

And, blinded with the pleasure of obeying that kind, sensible, wicked voice, Sherlock throws his head back and groans as he comes hot and long down John's throat. John sucks him through it, mouths around his softening cock to clean it, and gently lets go.

 

He moves up the bed to join him and Sherlock is smiling, boneless. He rolls towards him so that their foreheads are almost touching and John can see his shy smile, unfocused eyes. John gently runs his hands down Sherlock's side, making sure his hands stay under the head of the bed.

 

'Alright then?'

 

'Mmph.'

 

He hides his head in John's neck, takes a deep breath, and John does not remark on his shivering slightly, just pulls him closer, stroking his sides.

 

'What?'

 

' Yes John. That was better than cocaine.'

 

 Its lower than a whisper, and John can feel the lips against his neck.

 

 'Better than a severed limb.'

 

'Tart.' John's voice is soft and then they both giggle, kissing gently, hands in each other's hair.

 

Sherlock slides his hand over John's thigh, towards his cock.

 

'Did I say you could touch me?'

 

As matter-of-fact as if he'd remarked that they needed milk but Sherlock can see his pupils dilate so he blinks up at John, the muscles of his body slack long lines, not vibrating  with excess energy for once:

 

'Please let me make you come, John?' Whether the timidity is an act or not, its working for him. Christ, he wants Sherlock so badly, the heat of his mouth over his cock or those long fingers, smeared in precum, rubbing down his shaft.

 

John exhales and kisses him hard on the mouth. He rolls out of bed slowly and stands, looking at Sherlock with a very particular expression, eyes almost black.

 

'Yeah? Well then.' He meets his eyes.  'This is going to be the best bloody thing you've ever done. Get on your knees.'

 

Sherlock sits up, and flexes briefly, before settling on his knees, kneeling back on his haunches. He somehow manages to retain dignity naked and kneeling and his mouth is slightly open, lips obscenely red and spit-moist from kissing.

 

John approaches him, walking round to take in the strong curve of his back, the way his arse curves over his knees. All far more than John could ever have hoped for, he is filled with a sudden stab of adrenaline - _don't you dare fuck this up, Watson._

 

Sherlock wishes he could look at John's cock as he walks round, his mouth watering as he imagines the way it half-bounces. His body is cringing towards getting hard again as quickly as possible, his breath pulling in deep, jagged pants.

 

He had no idea this could feel so good, could make him feel as if his blood is singing.

John completes his rounds, running his fingers deep into Sherlock's hair, standing so close that when he exhales, his cock bobs against Sherlock's cheek streaking it with precum.  He groans a little, trying to contain his pleasure. Sherlock’s mouth falls open, his eyes flicker upwards.

 

'You want me to put it in there, then?'

 

Sherlock visibly quivers with desire: 'Yes, John, please,' and then John is drawing the leaking tip of his cock back and forth slowly across Sherlock's mouth, making his lips wet and sticky.

 

'Such a clever mouth. Fuck, it’s going to look good over my cock, your lips stretched and your tongue working me. Bet you've touched yourself thinking about this, haven't  you - got yourself off under the covers thinking about what my prick tastes like.'

 

'Oh, God, John, I have. Please, please, now.'

 

John lets his cock sink into Sherlock's mouth slowly but firmly, one hand on Sherlock's head to steady him. His pretty mouth opens wide to accommodate the head, and already he can feel John's pulse through it. Sherlock knows how to read miniscule quivers and breaths until his lovers forget their names, but he wants learn John properly, and he's already half lost in sensation. His eyes are closed and the world feels blissfully quiet, just the hiss of John's breath, the wet sound of his cock sliding in and out, and the salt-bitter taste that seems to calm his senses.

 

Sherlock's mouth is hot and tight round him and when John's hips snap forward in a moment of forgetting, the detective doesn't even flinch, just swallows around his cock with a pleased noise, glad John has forgotten himself. John knows he won’t last long, doesn't care:.

'Keep that up and - ugh - I'm going to cum.'

 

He glances down, moaning at the sight of his cock thrusting in and out of Sherlock’s wide-stretched mouth..

'Jesus fuck, God.'

 

Sherlock's tongue is teasing his vein, his cheeks pulled tight as he starts to suck like he means it, greedily swallowing, letting spit dribble down his chin, powerless to stop the muted moans he makes around John's cock. He doesn't think he's ever enjoyed anything like he's enjoying taking John to pieces.

 

'Christ, Sherlock.'

 

He feels John pause, breathe in once, and then 'Jesus, Jesus, FUCK.'

 

He comes hard and hot down Sherlock’s throat and he catches almost all of it, some of it leaking white down his chin. His whole body quivers - his thighs are soaking from his own precum, drips of his spit.

John groans and drops to his knees beside Sherlock, petting his hair, only letting his fingers run over his mouth once, gathering flecks of come.

 

'You ok?'

 

Sherlock is smiling lazily. When he speaks, he sounds faintly surprised.

 

'I've never found providing pleasure pleasing, previously. But oh, John' He gives the doctor a reproachful look, as if he had been deliberately denying him a treat, and flicks his tongue over his lips as if searching for any remaining traces.

 

'But that was ok?' John gestures that he can speak, tries to look encouraging rather than blindsided.

 

'I thought I was going to' - he gestures downwards - 'again. It was' - his eyes close and his voice drops - 'wonderful. Never tell a soul.'  Implied: about any of this. John wonders briefly what makes him this skittish.

 

'Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, almost blows his load when sucking off his flat mate. Doesn't seem like something I'd pop on the blog, to be honest.'

 

Sherlock laughs, kisses John's face, and John exhales a breath he didn't know he was holding, stokes the back of Sherlock's neck were he's slippery with sweat.

 

***

 

'Do you need tea, water?' Sherlock notes that he does not ask him if he wants to break his kneeling position: they are very much still playing.

 

'Water please, John.'

 

 He weights the name to remind him that he knows how this goes, is still behaving: he is rewarded by John drawing himself up full height and pushing his chest out slightly.

 

John's cock is nestled between his legs, soft, a little wet, extraordinarily attractive - Sherlock can feel his salivary glands working overtime - all he wants to do is make him hard again, give him whatever he wants.

 

He drinks the water and John doesn't crowd him, goes to do something in the next room. That's nice - not that he doesn't like (crave, require, demand) John's constant attention, but this is new, and worryingly, exhaustingly pleasurable. It might be better than cocaine, but cocaine comes in binges, self-administered and easy to acquire, and crucially, does not require the participation of any unpredictable second party. And he believes that John thinks he loves him but people do not stay, and John might not be people, but he is separate from them by only a hair's breadth, and Sherlock is still Sherlock.

 

Before he can reach the stage of calling the whole thing off, John is standing behind him, hands soothing his scalp, prick hot at the nape of his neck.

 

'Get comfy for a second. I'd like to ask something.'

 

Sherlock dips his legs, unfolds to sit cross-legged.

 

'Historically, top or bottom?'

 

'Both.'

 

He does not want John to ask him to elaborate. Mycroft said there was 'only Victor Trevor' but that's because he either doesn't know or more likely does not care to know about the unloving steps one might take to procure a substance when funds are tight.

 

'Preference?'

 

He doesn't need to think.

 

'I want you to fuck me, John, obviously. Otherwise the power dynamics will be-' He does not dare to articulate something so new and potentially sacred - 'will be buggered.'

 

John briefly smiles at the pun, but: 'if you think I'm any less able to top you with your cock in my arse, mate, then you're not the genius I thought you were.'

 

He cocks his head to one side because he obviously hadn't considered it - the sex he's had before was hardly heavy on the psychology, in fact both parties were very much not thinking, and in his - very detailed - fantasies it was always John on him, in him, filling him up and making him burn with sensation.

 

 'I'd like it very much if you would fuck me.' I want to give you this, he thinks, put the scalpel in your hands and let you learn me, I've given you little enough of myself before. John knows that when this is less new, Sherlock is going to be one hell of a handful.

 

'All or nothing with you, isn't it?' John's pleased. Sherlock notices, and suddenly he's conscious of his cock again. Funny, the way that pleasing John by eating breakfast has evolved into this. Perfect.

 

'Up here.'

 

Sherlock stands, swings onto the bed and lies on his back, knees bent, hands by his sides, looking faintly amused.

 

John positions himself flush against the taller man, strokes up his legs, his sides, fingers sliding over his ribs, palms heavy and flat over his nipples. He wants to learn every single dip, each point where his joints join, where his skin is warm and soft. The detective leans up from the bed to press John's hands further against him. His eyes are shut, and he is humming low in pleasure. His hands twitch, so John takes mercy, lets him dance his finger along John's collar bone, over his shoulders, over the tattoos which Sherlock ridges his nails into, cannot possibly get enough of.

 

'Lucky bloke, but I never thought I'd have this.'

 

Sherlock's eyes flutter to meet his, great dark pools, and he flattens his legs onto the bed, anchoring into John's touch. They kiss, the sudden shine of electricity between them, Sherlock’s mouth cool from the glass of water, tongue flicking into John's mouth, a perfect kiss gathered from all the adrenaline, uncertainty, desperation, love, that had been variously bottled up inside them.

 

John kisses over Sherlock's chest, nipping points of sensitivity into the skin to revisit later, down to his hipbones, back up to his mouth. When Sherlock breaks for air, his hands hesitantly -reverently - run back and forth over the lines of John's hips. His eyes are black, wide with need.

 

'Please John.'

 

'Didn't think you'd be begging already.'

 

'More, John. Do something, can't you?'

 

 He circles Sherlock's cock, tightening suddenly as his other hand teases hard at Sherlock's nipple,  flicking his nail  hard enough, he knows, to elicit the hiss of pain. He checks, a reflex, that there its hard enough to make Sherlock wince and make his cock jump at the same time, and turns his attention to the other side.

 

Sherlock's groaning, arching up into his touch, so John lets himself  growl out: 'roll over, hands and knees Sherlock.'

 

If he can see Sherlock shivering, he pushes down any urge to confront him over it. He kneels up beside him, running his hands over his flanks like one examines a horse. He reaches his arse, hands fondling over the warm skin, his thumbs rubbing hard circles that make Sherlock whine. He runs his fingers close to the space between his cheeks and Sherlock hums with pleasure, his deep baritone rumbling through them both.  In response John deliberately dips into Sherlock's cleft, the soft dry pad brushing, momentarily the puckered skin of his hole that makes John exhale rapidly, never mind Sherlock.

 

'Look at you, all exposed like this. I used to rub myself raw wondering what you'd look like here.' He circles his fingers again and leans close to Sherlock's pucker, breathes over it so that Sherlock can feel how closely he's examining him, that he's the one deducing how well Sherlock can take exposure. He dips in again and then presses his face against the cheeks of his buttocks, as if hoping to learn him through touch alone.  Such a perfectly lovely arse, remarkable now it’s surrendered to him. If Sherlock had been at his cognitive best, he would have sensed John's intent in the way he braced his weight on the bed, but he was lost, his hole fluttering wantonly as John breathed over it, longing for sensation.

 

'Why do you think you're all exposed like this? He punctuates the question by ghosting hot breath over him.

 

'You're going to - ugh - open me up - god, and - put your cock in me.' John presses his fingers into the dipped spaces between Sherlock's vertebrae and laughs.

 

'You should be so fucking lucky. You asked for more, didn't you?' Couldn't trust that I know you best, that I'll always make sure you have what you need. This is a little reminder of who decides what. And you'll count them out for me please, nice and loud, so I can hear you learning your lesson. And don't even think about rutting against me like the little pain slut I think you are, because every time you try to get off, you'll get five more.'

 

 

The first blow rains down hard across the line of his cleft, John's open hand. Sherlock chokes as the pain blossoms, presses his face into the pillow. He understands pain, God, but he loves the exquisite, velvet line it walks. He pushes back towards John.

 

'One.' Loud, just a hint of a sneer. John performs best when provoked: concealed weapon.

 

The second smack makes the first look nonsensical, those that follow it robbing Sherlock of linear thought. He's leaving handprints now, on skin so pale the marks stand out as if they have been painted. Tomorrow, Sherlock will be peppered with little bruises. He's been silent, too busy gauging Sherlock's reactions, but he's rock hard and leaking precum onto the bed in strings. His mouth opens without him even thinking: ' I was right. You  get off on pain, don't you?' Sherlock's eyes fall shut, he releases a shuddering groan. 'You want me to bruise you, do whatever I want.'

 

'God. John. Yes. Please. Just you, just your pain. Twelve.' Sherlock's head is getting lighter, black stars dancing in front of him, a wonderful cotton-wool silence between his ears, everything but the slap of John's hand, the red blossoming pain, forgotten.

 

'Make me yours, always yours.' He half-hears himself chanting, and his hips are rutting against nothing , cock red and his stomach and thighs sticky, the force of the blows sending pre-ejaculate back and onto him.

 

John knows he will stop at twenty, so he lets the last few fall as hard as he wants, Sherlock's arse glowing against his alabaster limbs.

 

'What do you say?' Sherlock lifts his head slowly, and the answer takes a second, his knees are weak, so John helps bend onto the bed, and both of them are panting and he’s smiling through the distance as he comes slowly back.

 

'Christ John. Give me more, please.' Its not what John is expecting, and when he looks over, Sherlock’s eyes are dancing, glittering almost as dangerously as John feels. This is an addictive dance, the hit unbelievably strong.

 

'You like it, don't you, fucking slut for me, getting harder and harder the more I try to punish you.'

 

And if he'd wondered before, when Sherlock bites down on his lip so hard it might bleed, John can let his final reservations drain away. Verbal humiliation, check. Pain, check. This is going to be wonderful, he thinks, and lets his hands roam over him, stroking his hot arse, flickering over where he knows he's most hurt. When he does drop down to his perineum, and runs his fingers back up, he can feel his hole twitching, trying to pull him in.

 

'Want me to fuck you?' He murmurs in Sherlock's ear, curling in next to him so that they are flush against one another. Sherlock nods into the hot crook of his neck, hands over John's shoulder, fingers on his tattoo again, limbs wrapping his. He's endlessly gorgeous, hard and taut by John's side, trusting that he'll bring release.

 

'Come on, you must have a monograph on variations in penile tumescence caused by arousing remarks saved somewhere. Use that clever mouth of yours to tell me what you want.' He smudges kisses onto his face, teeth-edged kisses that draw gasps.

 

'Not that I'm promising you'll get it.'

 

Sherlock looks momentarily nervous: 'Your - cock. I noticed when you - oh god.' He's rubbing one palm flat across his nipples - he knows without being told that John won't stand for him touching himself. 'Its thicker than mine - my fingers aren't - I used to imagine it but never, it wasn't - I want you to - Christ - put it in me, fuck me, open me up with it until I can't see or hear - oh god - or do anything except lie back and take it.'

 

He looks more naked than John's ever thought possible and John is worried he will come then and there.

 

'Well done love. And you took your punishment well, too, I know you could have taken more, so.'

 

He moves a pillow down the bed so that its level with Sherlock's arse, gestures him to sit up on it, knowing that hunger must be visible under his control.

 

He roughly hauls Sherlock's legs up and open, showing his thighs apart with his hands when he's too slow, feeling him wriggle with arousal when he accidentally presses on his bruises.

 

'I'm going to make you so open for me, pet, so desperate to be fucked. Do you have lube?'

 

Sherlock gestures to the bedside table. Later, they are going to have a conversation about the amount of lube it is normal for a single gentlemen to possess, but for now, John's happy there is choice. There are no condoms, but he's got one in his wallet and he's glad, upstairs is hardly an option.

 

At the click of the lube bottle Sherlock spreads  his legs further and John eyes him. 'Keen for my fingers, are you?'

He doesn't seem able to formulate a response.

 

 John is terrified. Of course he is. He's done this during prostrate exams, but that's different, and to women, but not to the men he'd met and briefly fucked, and not to anyone who mattered like Sherlock matters.  But asking for help has never been a strong point even out of the bedroom.

 

Sherlock catches his eye, reads the hesitation between the squeezing noise and bodily contact, and winks once. John meets his eyes and grins at him, the madca _p 'what sort of bloody fools are we'_ grin usually associated with chasing criminals, and brings  his hand, barely shaking, to the most intimate part of Sherlock.

 

That is why he loves him. Loves him. Christ.

 

He has one hand steadying against Sherlock's thigh and circles his middle finger slowly round Sherlock’s hole, dipping in when it pushes open, getting closer and closer. Sherlock has his cock in a loose grasp, halfway between stimulation and prevention and as soon as John hears his low whine he sinks his finger up to the knuckle, hoping that this is as glorious for Sherlock as it looks to him.

 

He is hotter than John imagined, tight and he instantly wants to claim Sherlock as _his._ It is more intimate than anything he's ever done and he thinks it could easily become his favourite place to be. He crooks his finger, drawing breathy noises from Sherlock, and pulls almost completely out, letting the tip of his finger circle again before he dips it back. Sherlock's arching his back, but he knows better than to push and makes do with clenching round John's finger tight enough to almost draw him further.

 

He's quickly working out what a tease John is, and certainly John waits for Sherlock's hands to fist in the sheets with the effort of staying still before he pulls out and pushes back, rougher, more demanding, with two fingers. He sinks them in and crooks them, knowing what he's aiming for. There.

 

'Oh, fuck.' Sherlock is loud, a spit of pleasure suddenly taking over his nerves. It feels like light, it makes him sweat suddenly, and John's fingers fill him but they don't carry the burn and stretch that his cock will, and he desperately, with a need that burns his chest, wants John in him.

 

John flutters his fingers back and forth over his prostate, the light touch making his cock jump, and then twists his fingers savagely twice. He is almost embarrassed, feels too open and exposed, but every movement of John's beautiful precise fingers inside him turn the fear into a delicious, terrifying exhibitionism. He wants to display himself for him.

 

John does add a third finger, his body curling up and over the detective's until they are eye-to-eye, messily kissing at each other and gasping.

 

'Fuck me, please fuck me, please fuck me.'

 

He smiles at Sherlock. 'Beg me properly, if you want it that badly.'

 

'Please John. Please put your cock in me, Christ, I need it so badly, need you so badly.'

 

Sherlock is barely able to get the words out as he pushes into him, grazing his sweet spot, but holds his gaze until John forces his eyes down with the fire in his own.

 

 

'Since I met you at Bart's. Its been - god, there -  you, at night, and sometimes I'd think of teasing me for hours, making me sweat like this and then finally - ugh - sinking into me and please, John, or I'm almost certainly going to cum before you're in me.'

 

 It's that final admission that undoes him, and he pulls back, about to scrabble on the floor for where he hopes his wallet is.

 

'Clean. Mycroft. Six monthly tests. You?'

 

'Clean. Tests, perk of the job. You sure?'

 

'Now, John, please.'

 

 

He pulls back, lines up, breathes in, and then edges his slick cock in slowly, inch by agonizing inch, watching Sherlock's face. He glances down, but it’s too much to look at, his cock disappearing into that pretty red hole, the sheer intimacy of it overwhelming. Sherlock's legs come up round his waist, cautious of drawing him in, but John feels them, leans forward, closes his eyes and bottoms out, praying that he won't come straight away.

 

'John.' Sherlock says his name like a prayer, a realization. He is hotter, wetter, more himself than John could possibly have imagined, and John cannot believe they haven't done this before, that they haven't been doing this forever, and he is still and careful, eyes scanning Sherlock's for signs of discomfort, until Sherlock growls 'please' with such force that its almost an imperative and next time he'll pull out for behavior like that but this time he lets it go because yes, fuck, that's a great idea.

 

Sherlock thinks he might die. His blood sings John's name in a way that previously, it has only serenaded cocaine. His cock is throbbing inside him, so hard, and wide, he was right, its almost a struggle to accommodate, but he circles his hips and moves, and it feels so fucking good that he moves up against John. He wants him to stop being a gentleman, to claim him, to make him hurt and thrill.  It feels as if his brain has been relocated to that tight passage, to the point of heat where John's cock is reaching, further than his fingers did, opening him up. The rest of the world has melted down to that incredible fullness.

 

John breathes out unsteadily, rolls his hips once more, and then feels the jut of Sherlock's chin.

 

He looks insolent. 'John... is that the best... oh... that you can do?'

 

John stills totally inside him and when he speaks it is quiet and deliberate, and terrifying: 'Oh, you would not fucking believe the trouble you are in. Hands under the headboard, and I do not want another fucking word from you till I've come, understood? And if you're struggling to take me, to take it, then remember that you asked for it, pet, and I am not going to hold back. I'm going to fuck you like I've wanted to for months, and months, and months.' He rolls his hips shallowly in time with his speech, just grazing the point that makes Sherlock's blood fizz.

 

Sherlock lets his eyes close, nods, grabs the headboard, breathes out hard through his nose, trying not to look too pleased with himself. John rolls his hips once more, decisively, and then lets his self-restraint break, finally, and fucks into Sherlock so hard that the headboard clatters off the wall, and his sweat drops onto Sherlock's stomach, joining the drips of precum. He fucks him so hard that Sherlock's breath turns to one continuous moan. The heat friction intensifies, as he plunges deeper into him than he ever has before, Sherlock deliberately tensing so he drags against him, clenching and holding him.

 

'Such a pretty, tight arse. Fuck, I'm going to make you mine, mine to use as often and as hard as I fucking want.' He's muttering filthy nonsense, breath breaking as he plunges endlessly into him, the world a narrow pinpoint. He looks down, watches his cock breach Sherlock's impossibly tight hole, then up at Sherlock's face, his vague smile as if he is floating, eyes piercing blue and so trusting, fond, and knows he's going to come.

 

Sherlock is moaning, covered in sweat, his and John's, mouth open, back arched, knuckles deathly white as he clings to the headboard. His eyes are fixed on John, who is fucking into him, every inch a soldier, completing the task thoroughly, with such focus. Sherlock is burning up. This is the attention he craves: this total annihilation, servitude to a stronger will. He is never as safe and happy as when he is being over-ridden, his senses stretched out, his boundaries cast aside, and now he is being lovingly obliterated by John's incoming pleasure, and yet, all of John's attention is focused on him, he is going to come because of his him. He clenches his muscles, pulling John further into him as he hits that sweet spot over and over again, emptying the air from John's lungs.

 

 

John bends one of Sherlock's impossibly bendy limbs over his shoulder which abruptly changes the angle, quirks his lips, and then pistons his hips faster than ever, his rhythm stuttering  and his thrusts getting shorter, sharper. He is grazing Sherlock's prostrate, and it feels as if he is deeper than before, and Sherlock can feel him right through his body. The new position is too much, he's going to have to safe word, he's going to have to...

 

John can feel Sherlock getting close, so close, can feel his balls draw up to his body and every muscle tighten.

 

'That's it love, go on, come for me, let it out, show me how much you like me in your arse, come on, come now.'

 

John rolls his hips once, fiercely, pressing up against him,, tracing the minute variations in his face as he suddenly comes. He arches up, spattering the space between them with ropes of come, spurting hard enough that it almost reaches his chest. He clenches his muscles desperately, almost drowning John out too.

 

'John, John, John.' He fucks him through it, hands round his shoulders, pressing him close. It’s the sexiest thing he's ever seen.

 

When Sherlock has stopped shaking, he starts moving again, long steady strokes. Sherlock screws up his face, pleasure connecting with pain as John pulls in and out, long strokes in his over-stimulated arse.

 

'Oh Christ, Sherlock, I'm going to come, I'm going to come in you.'

 

'John, love, I- please.'

 

The begging pushes John over the edge, and his vision whites out. He sees stars and suddenly he is coming harder than he's ever come in his whole life. His fingers dig into Sherlock's shoulders hard enough to leave bruises, and his breathing is so fast he thinks he might be hyperventilating.

 

He's whispering Sherlock's name, perhaps, although it might be nonsense, and it might be 'I love you', but until the fierce heat subsides he can't think about anyhing except the beautiful man under him, the way the universe is rushing through him, and how fucking lucky he is. 

 

He shakes through it, his whole body wracked with ecstasy, and the final wave passes through him with a sharp shout, and then he's kissing Sherlock lazily, rolling over to one side, letting his arms flop open so Sherlock can roll into them.

He does so, immediately burying his face in John's neck and bringing his long legs over John's torso. His hair his stuck to the back of his neck, damp with sweat, and John rubs his fingers through it happily.

 

***

 

'You're all sticky - let me up for a flannel?' Sherlock doesn't move. John's voice drops, 'hey, look at me a sec, come on - you ok?'

 

His eyes are shining, his face peaceful, lazy, but there is a tension hovering underneath, ‘John, I-  'I tried to... Or rather not to. Makes me feel. For months, John, since you moved in. You make me feel. All the time. It has become apparent that you can provide _peace_ that I didn't know I wanted, and sometimes you're duller than I thought I could tolerate but then suddenly brighter and less predictable than anyone, like a prism in darkness then in light. You upend everything, and I cannot - cannot imagine what my life would be without you. Whilst I have believed for some time that I may have a reciprocal effect, I would appreciate positive verbal confirmation. Were this to be a single occurrence, John, I'd need to make - arrangements - for a while, to emotionally recalibrate.'

 

The first rule John has learnt with the detective was that the longer the words, the more convoluted the sentences, the greater the turmoil underneath.

 

Sherlock Holmes, whom John has only once seen look anything other than entirely certain, has the grace to look unsure - the twitch of the muscles in his jaw. John knows that he ought to be ecstatic, to feel vindicated and glorious, but instead, he feels calm, the final piece of his new life slotting into place. Perhaps it was inevitable, along with the sock-drawer-rifling and being followed to sex clubs and never getting to read the whole paper and having to learn how to get bloodstains out of everything.

 

'I love you, you madman. Probably about since I met you, if you must know. Duller than you thought you could tolerate, my arse.'

He kisses Sherlock, still surprised he is allowed to reach over and do so. 'And however we, you know, sleep together, the rest won't change. You'll still always have me. I'm not going anywhere.'

 

Sherlock wriggles in delight beside him.

 

'Not even the bookies at Green Park?'

 

An elbow makes its way to Sherlock's bony side and he squawks in an undignified manner, tightening his grip on John so he can't move further.

 

'No need for it now, with all the vice I could ever want making my sheets sticky as we speak.'

 

'Mmm. About that,' Sherlock runs his fingers down John's back and bats his eyelashes, 'might I have that flannel now? I need to text Lestrade.'

 

John sighs gently, pads to the bathroom and brings a damp flannel back. He slips into the bed but pulls the covers away from Sherlock who shoots him a glare.

 

'Roll over.' He cleans him gently, reverently, stroking his hair as he drags the flannel over his skin, checking him for any damage.

 

'I'm fine John, honestly. Stop fussing.'

 

'What were you asking Lestrade? Case?'

 

'Asking if we could borrow handcuffs, and any other restraints he has lying around. Just until we can go shopping, obviously.' He smiles at John from under his eyelashes.

 

'And before you say anything, I saw the look you gave the dressing gown cord on my door. I draw the line at household items unless it’s an emergency. Think of all the wonderful objects we can buy and experiment with!'

 

 

John gapes, 'I mean yes, fuck yes, but in the interim you just thought you'd enlighten D.I. Lestrade as to our newly established sexual practices? Great, Sherlock, bloody marvelous. Lets just hope he doesn't tell Donovan.'

 

Sherlock nuzzles him and yawns, 'with any luck she'd die of shock on hearing it. Cup of tea?'

 

And with that, everything clicks into place. This is who they are, what they do: bicker, share their lives with each other, and now, this. Natural as breathing. John can't remember what he was so worried about. John grins and pulls Sherlock's dressing gown, far too long, round him.

 

'How many sugars?' he calls from the kitchen.

 

Sherlock stretches himself out. His brain is quiet for the first time since he can remember, the hum of the world just beginning to come back in as the glow of his orgasm fades. He smiles up at the ceiling. His whole bed smells like John Watson, and if you were to carve him open right now, every fibre of his being would be shot through with more happiness than he ever thought he'd feel.

 

'Two please. Got to keep my strength up. I've called in to the clinic sick on your behalf, and I've told them that under no circumstances whatsoever will you be leaving your bedroom for the remainder of the day.'

 

From the kitchen he hears a gentle laugh, and it sounds like home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in this fandom, so all feedback is very welcome.
> 
> Disclaimer: none of them belong to me, of course.


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